


How to Win Friends, Crash Cymbals, and Fail at Asking Her Out

by pickled_plum



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Bobby Drake is lawful good, F/M, Johnny Storm is true chaotic neutral, MJ reads heavy feminist theory, Peter is a nervous sweet cinnamon roll, Post-Homecoming but Pre-FFH, swearing and sexual goonery because this is band camp duh, the band camp fic we all knew we needed, this one time at band camp, we're pretending the blip was only eight months rather than four years
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:55:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25766326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pickled_plum/pseuds/pickled_plum
Summary: “Pete, look, you’re sixteen, you gotta get back to normal life. You’ve earned it. You saved the world!” Dr. Banner insists. “Go do something with this summer. Tony...Tony would want that.”“Yeah, I just don’t wanna know what he’d say about me going toband camp,” Peter protests. And, it’s, he means, it’s not like hedoesn’twant to go; it was really fun when he was a freshman and the summer before sophomore year. But somehow, crashing a set of the school’s cymbals around in time seems kinda silly after meeting a metric heck-ton of aliens, flying around on that lady’s winged horse, and going to aliteral‘nother planet.Except this one time, at band camp, it did kinda turn into a mission.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 13
Kudos: 14





	1. Sunday

**Author's Note:**

> My younger sister and I spent two days arguing over what instrument the Avengers would play, based on MJ's offhand comment in Homecoming that Peter's quit the marching band. So thus, here we are, pretending the Blip only lasted like eight months, and it's the summer after the blip, so Peter rejoins marching band, which is where he first develops feelings for MJ before he finally decides to act upon them after the following school year (because while the camera in Homecoming loves MJ, there's really not a big indication that Peter does, IMHO???) on the school trip to Europe.
> 
> It's been ten years since I last was in marching band (wow, I'm old), so forgive me--though we all know the best stuff doesn't happen on the field. Anyways, this was lovingly beta-read by said younger sister, who has been a band camp instructor many times.

_Get back to normal...time to get back to normal_...Peter considers. He keeps staring at the blank walls of the new apartment. He constantly thanks God, or Odin, or heck, Dr. Strange’s time-lady-master-friend-person that the landlord had put their stuff in a storage unit. It’s not unpacked yet, but he has reverently tacked the Stark Expos poster back on the wall-- _no! He doesn’t tear up every time he looks at it!_

He thinks back to last week upstate. 

“Pete, look, you’re sixteen, you gotta get back to normal life. You’ve earned it. You saved the world!” Dr. Banner insisted. “Go do something with this summer. Tony...Tony would want that.” 

“Yeah, I just don’t wanna know what he’d say about me going to _band camp_ ,” Peter protests. And, it’s, he means, it’s not like he _doesn’t_ want to go; it was really fun when he was a freshman and the summer before sophomore year. But somehow, crashing a set of the school’s cymbals around in time seems kinda silly after meeting a metric heck-ton of aliens, flying around on that lady’s winged horse, and going to a _literal_ ‘nother planet. 

“Wait, he’s going to _band camp_!?” sniggers Mr. Wilson, laughing into his hands. “Oh, this is _too much_. Now I really wish Tony were here to say something!” Colonel Rhodes chuckles too. Peter’s outnumbered on this one--he really misses Captain Rogers, who would shut them up with a look. Usually. He gulps. 

“Look, he’s a kid. The aunt is gonna kill us if he doesn’t have some semblance of a kid-hood after all this bullshit!” says Mr. Happy. “Fury’s gonna try to get his hands on him sooner rather than later, and then he’s going have a _lot_ of growing up to do before he’s ready. So we’re bundling him up to band camp at a college outside the City for a _week_ , Wanda’s gonna go as baby-sitter and--” 

“I’m _sixteen_ , I am old enough to baby-sit other kids!” he protests. Not that it’s ever really happened, aside from that one time Mrs. Grant had to run down to the UberEats guy, but that kinda counts--it was a whole ten minutes, and nothing caught on fire! “Miss Maximoff doesn’t need to baby-sit me! Does she even do _anything_ musical?” 

“I played the curly one before the accident in Sokovia--what’s it called in English...French horn. But I’ve done my research, Peter,” Miss Maximoff says. “I’m now Wanda Matelski, Polish international student, doing some summer work for Midtown High School. I’m gonna coach _color guard_! And you don’t need to call me ‘Miss Maximoff,’ I told you.” 

“Great. Now all the girls are gonna start throwing flags with their minds!” Peter crosses his arms and rolls his eyes. 

“Have fun with that piccolo-dildo, Stifler,” says Mr. Wilson as Mr. Happy drags Peter out of the room by the collar. Even Dr. Banner laughs at that one. 

“I do the cymbals!” he protests one last time before being hauled out the door. “And somebody better make me a discreet, high-tech pair of ear plugs so I don’t faint from aural over-stimulation and then get run over by a tuba player on the field!”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll get some oral over-stimulation from some cute flute player!” Mr. Wilson hollers after him. Miss Maximoff and the colonel are howling with laughter. Peter clenches his teeth as Mr. Happy pushes him down the hall to the car.

* * *

On the bus to the college, Peter starts texting Ned to whine. Ned quit band in the eighth grade to join coding club, and so Peter’s only friend left in band is Harry Osborn...who’s had a growth spurt and successfully got a spot on the drumline. Freshman year, they played marimba together and then Harry played the cymbals with him the summer before Peter quit sophomore year. But Harry did not want to sit with him on the bus, and has pulled a new red-haired girl practically into his lap, so Peter sits alone. He’s even forgotten to check who is roommate is...oh well. It’s probably not Harry. 

Peter’s had a growth spurt too, so _there_ , Harry! He’s a whole five-foot-ten now--he thinks. He hasn’t actually been measured, but his pants are for sure way too short these days. And Harry probably doesn’t have abs or super-strength. 

“Scoot over, loser,” barks MJ above him. The bus rattles. He looks up to see her standing over his seat, and immediately _loses. his. shit_. 

MJ is like, really, really pretty. How has he gone two years never noticing this most obvious of facts?! The sun filters in over her curly brown hair and turns it into a golden halo and her dark eyes glitter, and wow her skin is so perfect, and _holy shit those are_ really _short shorts that’s so much exposed leg thank Jesus and every saint and Thor and the Force and oh my god._

He scoots over. She flops down in the space _next. to. him._

“Did you skip lunch or something?” 

Peter didn’t, but his stomach rumbles anyways. “Uh, n-no, why?” 

“You look like a starving orphan trying to charm me out of a sandwich,” she says flatly, and flips a book open-- _The Queen of America Goes to Washington City: Essays on Sex and Citizenship_ by Lauren Berlant. He swallows forcefully, and his thoughts race between _holy shit, how have I never noticed that she’s so pretty_ , disbelief that her perfect golden-brown leg is so close to his, and _how can one person be so freakin’ smart?_

He spends the next hour of the trip glancing surreptitiously at her legs, her progress on the book (she speeds through it at an incredible pace), and trying to focus on the game on his phone. The game distraction doesn’t work out the best. 

His skin prickles and he looks up in a shock--MJ has gotten real close and her head is moving towards his face now. He yanks the headphones from his ears in a panic.

“What!?” Shit, his voice cracks. _When will it finally drop fully? He’s Spider-Man, for god’s sake!_ MJ, for once, also looks shocked. Heads turn around them. Harry makes eye contact with Peter and stares at him with his jaw dropped. 

“Mind your own business, fuckos!” MJ snarls. The heads snap back. Peter sinks into the seat as far as he can, until he is practically jackknifed, knees in his face. “I’m not done with you, Parker.”

“What, MJ?” he asks, sneaking a glance up. The sun is doing that halo-thingy in her hair again. 

“What are you listening to?” she asks, but she slips down the seat with him, resting her head against his. She smells like lemons and sandalwood, and Peter sighs a little. 

“The Shins,” he whispers. Her eyes are inscrutable, even though she’s mere inches away. 

“That is all,” she says, as if no drama’s gone down and she hasn’t just called the whole bus “fuckos”. She bends back up to get back to her Queen of America book, and Peter sneaks a look at the expanse of skin exposed by her t-shirt riding up. He feels a little guilty. 

Later, he’s corralled off the bus to be re-corralled in the lounge of a college dorm. MJ smashes against him. He sighs now that they are finally the same height-- _thank you Jesus and all the saints and Thor’s magic hammer and the Force_. The band director, Mr. Connolly, starts yelling his usual things; don’t stay up past midnight, chaperones are not your friends, shower, drink water, don’t take anything offered to you by Josh Haag, this is the schedule, we’re eating pizza back down here at six, and other things that Peter is honestly not that fussed over. Mr. Connolly used to scare him, and then he saw the big purple guy. So, you know, perspective. 

Peter grabs his bag from the trailer, and the set of cymbals in his case that are his for the week, and heads to where some chaperones are distributing keys on lanyards and the wristbands they’re supposed to wear to get into the cafeteria for meals. He grabs his from Mrs. Patullo, and heads up the stairs to the cell block that’s room 114. 

When he swings the door open, he’s hit in the face with a blast from a fan (oh, thank god, another one) and some dude yelling on the phone. 

“Dad, no, Dad, stop, yes, Susie and I got here just fine. No, nothing’s on fire. Yes, I left my tools at home! My roomie’s here, I gotta go!” says the dude, talking...talking faster than Peter’s usual jabber. Muscular, shirtless, in capital-letter red basketball shorts, the guy is running his free hand through his spiky blond hair with such vigor that Peter’s afraid the kid’s gonna go bald by the time his conversation is over.

“Hey,” Peter says as he swings in the door, throwing his bag on floor, stashing the cymbals in the modular closet, and pulling the pillow and sheets he’s packed out first in order to make the bed. The kid finally hangs up the phone, and looks at him. 

“Heyyyy! You’re Peter! I’m Johnny, Johnny Storm! My older sister Susie and I just transferred here--our school got destroyed by aliens. Man, it. Was. _Nuts_!” the guy gabbles, extending a hand. Peter shakes his hand. Johnny Storm’s got a grip like vice, and he has wild electric blue eyes that are clearly trying to memorize something about Peter’s face. Peter looks down, sees an open trumpet case by the foot of Johnny’s bed, and groans internally. “Anyways, I’m a junior, Susie’s a senior and holy _shit_ , I am so excited to go to Midtown Science and Tech, I heard you guys have a whole robotics _lab_ and...”. This thought heartens Peter--maybe, for a trumpet player, this guy isn’t so bad. 

“We do. I’m on the robotics team, happy to introduce you to some of the teammates. What’s Susie play?” he asks, and Johnny inhales to rattle off more information. 

“Susie plays clarinet--want to eat dinner with us? Oh, shit, my grades _prolly_ aren’t good enough to be on the robotics team, Dad’s always giving me a hard time about being a straight-C student, but Harry Truman or someone important did say that the world is run by C students, so ya know, I’ve got some kinda shot. But the real fun is that _this time_ at band camp, Susie’s boyfriend goes to this college and is living on campus this summer! Just so you know!” 

_How does this guy even have time to take oxygen in?_ Peter wonders while making his bed, as Johnny throws a shirt. If he’s being honest with himself, Peter’s a little disappointed that he’s not the only junior with abs now that Johnny Storm’s around.

“Do you ever turn off the motor mouth?” asks a new voice from behind Peter. He looks over his shoulder to see a new guy--how did the Peter-tingle not go off?--coming in through the bathroom. His suite-mate is a petite guy, with the lightest of steps, and short, tidy hair dyed green and blue. 

“Hah, nope. Pete, sorry, I talk in my sleep too,” Johnny jokes. He extends his hand to the newcomer. Another guy comes up behind him, tall and sandy-haired with a mild expression. “I’m Johnny, Johnny Storm, and this is Peter Parker.” 

“Victor Borkowski, and this is Bobby Drake,” says blue-haired guy. “We’re both new transfers to Midtown.” 

“School destroyed by aliens too?” Johnny asks, wide-eyed. 

“Nope. I wanted to go somewhere that would prep me for college more,” says Bobby, stepping in. They chat with Victor and Bobby for a few minutes, and learn that Victor plays the clarinet and is a year below them, and Bobby plays the mellophone, and is also a junior. Bobby is _really_ into cryoelectrics--maybe he’d be good on academic decathlon?

Later, as Peter throws some clothes in one of the drawers, Johnny asks,“Hey, is that an Citroën t-shirt? With a pun?”

“Yeah, double-helical gears rock my world!” Peter says, finally cracking a smile. “I thought you said you were a C-student?” He brandishes the t-shirt with the Citroën logo on it--stamped over it is _it’s a lemon_. 

“I love cars. I love to go _fast_ , you know!? The best! I’m rebuilding a hot rod in the garage at home--my summer project. I’m almost done. I like you, Parker, you’re good people,” Johnny jabbers. Maybe this Johnny Storm isn’t so bad?

“That’s so cool! We should go downstairs and get that pizza; you can introduce me to your sister while we wait,” Peter suggests. Dr. Banner was right; maybe it _is_ time to get back to normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY, SO THIS IS MY LOGIC BEHIND PETER BEING A CYMBALIST, BECAUSE YES, I KNOW HE HAS SUCH A CLARINET PERSONALITY: One, we know from Civil War that May doesn't exactly make a ton of money. In my high school, at least, percussion was the cheapest option--you paid fifty bucks for a bag of sticks and you were set. Two, cymbals are always played by a bunch of nerdy boys who actually have some upper body strength who are hopeful to get on drumline eventually. Three, he'd be good at the show-offy parts of cymbals; Peter likes to be noticed!
> 
> Anyways, leave a comment, some kudos, a meme, whatever you like! I am shooting to update and finish fairly quickly before I go back to my adult job after my first summer vacation since...since the last time I was at band camp!


	2. Monday

Peter’s alarm goes off early on Monday morning, and he slaps it off to shuffle into the shower. Johnny’s sister Susie, it turns out, is a dainty, beautiful blonde with a sly smile, and she and MJ kept doing aerial gymnastics in his dreams last night, fighting over who he would join on their trapeze silks. He wants to savor this dream as long as he can before he starts dreaming of endless football fields where he’s out of step, and trying to make it the end-zone in the searing July heat. 

_Maybe I should ask MJ to sit with me at breakfast? Or maybe I should just go join her? Be aggressive about it, like, hey fucko, I’m sitting here, or something_. He retracts that idea. Only MJ could get away with calling someone a fucko to their face. 

Peter goes into the cafeteria and starts to fill up a plate, surrounded by a gaggle of freshman girls who giggle and snort at him. 

“Go talk to him, then, Kitty!” urges one to her dark-haired friend. _Good advice_ , Peter thinks as he fills a glass with orange juice, and walks away to scan the room for MJ--just in case. He finds her at a tall table, hands in her face, surrounded by mugs of coffee and glasses of water, and a tower of buttered toast. 

“Can I sit with you?” he asks, setting the plate on the table. 

“Only if you want to wake a dead person,” she groans. Her fingers part, and her eyes peek out at him, blinking wearily. He smiles a little. 

“I’ll, uh, do my best. What’s up?” 

“Stayed up _waaayyyyy_ too late researching the Hinterkaifeck farm conspiracy. I solved it at three in the morning, and then passed out. I refuse to march today. It’s not happening.” Out of the corner of his eye, Johnny bounds up to him, trailed by Susie, whose eyes might just roll out of her head. 

“Heyyyy, Petey! Who is this?” Johnny shout-asks. 

“Oh, uh, Johnny, Susie, this is MJ. She’s on academic decathlon with me, well, she’s actually the captain now--still the captain? I dunno, that eight-month blip really makes time a big wibbly-wobbly ball. MJ, this is my roommate Johnny Storm, and his older sister Susie. They are transferring to Midtown because their school got blown up--” he starts.

“ _By aliens!_ ” Johnny roars. “It was the craziest shit in my goddamn life, and what an adrenaline rush, and holy crap, we got out of the gym showers so fast when it happened--” 

“You can’t sit here,” MJ says flatly, staring him down. Johnny looks like he’s gonna throw something, and his face goes blotchy red. Susie throws her head back and laughs. 

“I’m so sorry about him--we’ve tried medication, breathing techniques, therapy, and nothing seems to slow him down or shut him up,” Susie says, still chuckling. The Storms move on, Susie dragging Johnny by the back of his Bugatti Chiron t-shirt. 

“He plays trumpet, doesn’t he?” MJ asks, eyes narrowed. 

“Yep,” Peter replies, and looks to his scrambled eggs in embarrassment.

* * *

Peter joins Victor, Bobby, and Johnny going down the field after breakfast, and it’s there that he finally sees Miss Maximoff--he means Wanda--for the first time since he was upstate. She does look younger in sportier clothing--not that she’s really that old-- with her long sunset hair tied in a high ponytail, and an intimidating pair of sunglasses perched on her nose. There’s already a swarm of color guard girls swirling around her, asking questions, twirling practice flags, and gossiping. Peter looks through the ten yard line for his drill book, and his is right next to Harry’s drill book--Harry is bass #6, the biggest one. Peter looks closer at his.

_Cymbal #1?! Section leader! What the--I have to be in charge?!_

Peter looks at the rest of his line. There’s seven other cymbalists, a motley crew of with only one girl. He sighs, and walks through the line to introduce himself, and finds that the girl is Allie and she’s a sophomore, and there’s a Toby, a Milo, a Joey, an Ian, a Felix, and a Marco who are a bunch of freshman boys. Toby’s nose is so doused is sunscreen that it’s completely white, and Ian, in particular, looks like he’d rather shrivel up and die than march, but Peter is at least relieved that they all have cymbal gloves to practice in. 

“Cymbals! I’m Tracy, and I am so excited to meet you all!” shouts a voice. Peter whips around--their cymbal instructor is a college-age guy in the cleanest white sneakers Peter’s ever seen and a lavender t-shirt. His hair is _immaculate_. “Which one of you is Peter?” 

Peter raises his hand and Tracy ruffles his hair so enthusiastically that Peter sees stars. 

“Looks like we’ve got a _lot_ of work to with these guys!” Tracy chirps, and Peter does his best impression of a grin. “Anyways, let’s get in line, y’all! Warm-ups in a few!” 

If Peter is perfectly honest with himself, he ponders as he’s lead through stretches, he doesn’t love playing the cymbals; Mr. Connolly roped him into it, because the spider bite meant that he’d gotten really good upper body strength really fast by the time the summer of sophomore year had rolled around. He likes doing all the fun visual cues with it, spinning them around his wrists in arcs and flashes and crossovers, but it’s _hard_ because moves have to match, and they make your hands throb by the end of the day. But he’s never dropped one, because, you know, sticky hands. He barely made it through the first day of music practice the summer before he quit, though, and had to MacGyver some earplugs with Harry’s wax for his braces to make it through the week without fainting. However, yesterday morning, he found a pair of imperceptible plugs with a scrawled note from Dr. Banner on his bed, so he at least got something he wanted out of this week. 

As he bends over to do hamstring stretches, the prickle that makes his arm hair stand happens, and a second later, a strange hand gets dangerously close to his hip.

“Harry, get your hand away from my butthole!” he snaps-- _this Peter-tingle is coming in handy!_ Peter locks eyes with Harry through his legs and smirks at his former friend.

“Damn, Parker, you are too good!” Harry laughs, his hands dropping to the turf. They stand up together. He’s glad to share a smile with Harry--it reminds him of goofing around in the before-times.

“Time for bouncies!” yells Felicia Hardy, the lead drum major. The band cheers, especially the multi-quad bros. Peter does too, if he’s being honest, but he catches Wanda’s eye as she winds her way through the lines of students, and she gives him a look that is clearly Sokovian for “what the fuck?” 

He swallows a grin as the whole band puts their hands on their hips and starts to bounce to the right at the hip, counting aloud to four, then bends forward at the waist for four, then push their hips to the left for four, and then they all thrust their hips forward with four loud grunts. They keep counting down, from three bounces around, to two, until they have finished with one final thrust forward and a huge grunt that echoes around the field. The whole band laughs, and two lines ahead with the rest of the alto saxes, Peter sees MJ laughing too, a real, loud, delighted thing that wrinkles her nose and tosses the curls of her ponytail. He sighs, and Wanda catches his eye again, looking positively agog. He shrugs, and the band commences to learning drill for the morning. 

“Alright, gang, break time! Drink some damn water!” calls Mr. Connolly after two hours in the sun, and the group drops their poker chips and drill books to mark their spots. 

Peter is sweating like a liar in court, but he still feels pretty energetic. Ahead of him again, he sees MJ walking to the water tent. 

_I should...I should get her attention. Quick, what’s something that will impress her?_

Peter settles on cartwheeling up to her, landing on his feet to walk next to MJ, who is being trailed by Angelica Jones

“Uh, hey, Peter,” she says, eyes shifty. “What do you want?” 

“Um.” _Shit, did not think this through_. “What time is it?” 

“How about, half-past fuck you, Peter!” snaps Angelica, tightening her long red ponytail. “Cartwheeling on turf like some asshole.” Angelica’s usually a nice girl, when she hasn’t been marching in the hot sun for two hours. 

“Hey, he’s not a total asshole!” MJ protests. 

“Hey, watch this!” shouts Johnny Storm, who proceeds to try several front handsprings and crashes into the fence that separates the field from the water tent. Many people laugh. 

“Now, that’s an asshole,” remarks MJ. 

For what it’s worth, Peter also crashes into the fence, because his Spidey-sense doesn’t really work on inanimate objects.

* * *

“Teach me how to do a backflip,” Johnny begs, kicking his feet on the stone wall they’re perched on, looking into the twilight. 

“I can’t do a backflip,” Peter says, scrolling through his phone. He double-taps to like a photo MJ has posted--her alto on the linoleum floor captioned _i fucking miss my oboe #barbarianbandcamp_. 

“Peter Parker, you’re needed.” Peter looks up, and sees Wanda approaching, her intimidating sunglasses still on. 

“O-oh, okay. For what?” he asks.

“Tracy and I are collaborating some moves for the cymbals and guard,” she rattles off--Wanda’s lying through her teeth. 

“Okay, Johnny, I’ll see you later,” he said, trailing after Wanda. 

“I’ll text you later so you can teach me to do a backflip!” Johnny calls after him. Peter turns around, arms outstretched. 

“ _I cannot do a backflip!_ ”

“Peter, you can do a backflip. I’ve seen you do nine in a row before. For fun. Because a meeting was boring,” Wanda whispers as they walk down a path to the main plaza of the campus. 

“Yeah, well, he doesn’t need to know that. He has no filter and can’t shut up.”

“Are you sure you’re not talking about yourself?” 

Peter scowls as she leads him into the campus’s cafe. Wanda insists on buying him a smoothie, and he’s not complaining, because he is kinda hungry. Johnny had insisted they join the cafeteria eating contest with some other trumpet players, and the waffles, lasagna, chicken almandine, green beans, baked potato, fries, and small mountain of soft serve he’d put away hadn’t quite covered his appetite. He did hate to think of how the winner, a trombone player named Eddie Brock, felt right about now, though. 

“So, are we just having a debrief from the day, orrrrr...” he asks, as Wanda steers him to table in a back corner. Dusk is rapidly falling, a relief after a day in sunglasses. Wanda stares at him, giving a long, awkward slurp through the straw.

“So, I’m not just here to baby-sit,” she starts. 

“I’m sixteen, I don’t _need_ \--”

“I know. Stop. I understand. It’s for your safety, because whether you like it or not, you’re a minor still. But here’s the thing. We’ve been getting hints about enhanceds and mutants like wildfire lately, all over the Tri-State area, really, so I’m here to scope it out,” she says. “Bruce’s suggestion. He’s coming into his own as a leader, don’t you think?” she says. 

“Yeah, I like Dr. Banner. I still...I still miss Mr. Stark, though,” he admit, fiddling with a straw wrapper. “Why you?” 

“As Mr. Stark would say, ‘This weird ticker knows things,’” she says with a wry smile, tapping her temple with a finger. 

“What is it about your powers that are letting you do this? What’s your range? What if Dr. Banner builds you a helmet or something to enhance it? How much can you move with your mind in kilograms? Are you reading my mind right now? Should I do something to shield it? Is that rude?” Wanda holds up a hand, and he stops. 

“Shhh, inhale. No, I am not reading your mind right now. Gah, I miss having a little brother. Well, Pietro was twelve minutes older than me, but I was the one who took care of him,” she says, “But I have been sent to...ah, what’s the word Sam used? Suss. I have been sent to suss out any enhanced kids since your school has just amassed a bunch of new students from all over Tri-State area, so we can at least keep an eye on them. Stark’s idea, really.” 

“He was watching for others?”

“Just casually. You were the first he found, and I’m surprised that he approached you still. He meant to bench you until you ‘turned eighteen, or better yet, graduated from MIT with honors,’ but that...obviously did not happen.” 

Peter fiddles more with the straw wrapper, and slurps some mango-raspberry smoothie. Wanda’s stare, though he will never say it out loud, is penetrating and a little scary. 

“You want to know if there are any here, don’t you?” 

“Did you just read my mind? That was so slick! I didn’t even feel anything! Wanda, holy crap!”

She rolls her eyes, but gives a small smile that reminds him of May. “I did not read your mind. You have a face like an open laptop with the screen blown up.” 

“Hey! I can keep a secret! Kept a pretty big one for long time,” Peter grumbles. 

“Okay, whatever. But I think there’s a few here. It’s only because we’ve been here for one day, and damn! They keep you busy! It’s exhausting. How’re your feet?” 

“They’re fine. I might feel differently tomorrow; we’ll see.” He shrugs. 

“Yeah, lots of minds are really focused on marching, using their left feet, how hot it is, that kinda stuff. One of my girls was close to fainting, so I will admit that I got Mr. Connolly to call break before that happened,” she says, smirking. 

“What?! You did not!” 

“Shhh, yes, I did,” she whispers. She leans forward conspiratorially. “Do you wanna talk about this MJ situation?” 

Peter jerks back from the table as fast as he can, jaw dropping. 

“Nooo, no, she’s not! Is she? What kinda powers? She’s gotta be telepathic or something!” 

“Stop, inhale. She’s not enhanced, Peter, but you’ve got a big crush on her,” she says with a smirk in her voice.

“Nope. I don’t wanna have that conversation, Wanda. But thanks for the smoothie! Uh, I’ll see you in the morning,” he says. _You could ask her to look in MJ’s head and find out if she might interested_ , says the little voice in his head (who sounds a lot like Mr. Wilson, he finds). But that feels like too much of an invasion of MJ’s privacy, that it would be a terrible thing to do, however tempting.

* * *

When Peter gets back to the boys’ dorm, he sees that he’d missed some chaos--there’s been a silly string fight, and someone’s retaliated with body spray. And it smells like Thanksgiving on his floor? He follows his nose, and knocks on the door that smells the strongest of Thanksgiving dinner. 

“Come in!” calls a voice that sounds like Louie Minnelli. Peter opens the door--Louie is snap-chatting video footage of Charlie Murphy and Barry Hapgood crouched on the floor by what looks like a box wrapped in tin foil. 

“Why does it smell like turkey in here? Just curious,” Peter asks. 

“Peter! It’s so cool! Barry managed to convert the foot bath I brought into a slow cooker!” exclaims Charlie, turning to Peter. “I’ll deal with the sore feet if it means a couple non-cafeteria meals!” 

Peter gushes--this is _so cool_ , and he has so many questions

“How’d you do it, Barry? What’d you re-route? Where’d you get the turkey, actually, how’d you get the turkey _here_?” he starts.

“Guys, get in here! Charlie and Barry are making turkey dinner!” Louie yells to his phone. No sooner than he sends the video off does the room start filling up. 

“When’s dinner? I’m _starving_!” calls Johnny, bursting into the room. 

“Well, we just put it in like thirty minutes ago,” Charlie says, “So I don’t think it’s done yet.” 

“How’d you get the turkey in here?” shouts Bobby above the growing din. 

Later, when Peter is falling asleep to Johnny’s babbling about the turkey in the slow cooker and how he will surpass that idea--somehow, he ponders about all the enhanced guys that might be surrounding him right at that very moment. The thought escapes to his recollection of Wanda’s knowledge of MJ, and then MJ’s pretty skin in the sun takes over his mind’s eye. He should eat breakfast with her again if he can find her tomorrow morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Bouncies" are a long-standing tradition that my marching band insisted on, and I just really wanted to honor that tradition. 
> 
> Leave a kudo, a comment, thoughts on what you think other MCU people would play in band! I would treasure it.


	3. Tuesday Afternoon

They are halfway through a run on a section when the cymbal line has to separate from the rest of the drumline to get to the trombone soloist and the trumpet soloist, and Peter has made his ultimate decision that whoever did drill design this time is a _complete moron_ , because Ian has to lead the line. 

“Ian, let’s go! We’re two counts late!” Peter shouts from the middle of the line (who made that call? Honestly). “IAN! GO!” 

Ian is frozen. In fact, no one moves, wanting to avoid a pile-up like the one that went down this morning with the trumpets (surprisingly not Johnny’s fault, Peter noted). Four more counts pass.

“STOP, STOP-STOP-STOP!” screams Mr. Connolly. “Cymbals, what is the problem!?” 

Peter knows that he is furious-red under his sunburn, and he lifts a cymbal over his head for some shade--the sun has reached its zenith. He’s frustrated, he’s hungry, he’s way over-heated, and now he is being yelled at, with MJ only yards away as a witness. 

“Peter was yelling at us!” shouts Joey. _Really?! That’s where we’re going now?_ , Peter thinks. 

“ _And now I am yelling at you, Joseph Bolger!_ ” Mr. Connolly shouts back. “Fifty push-ups for all of you, NOW, and you will spend your rest hour practicing, yes, Tracy?” Peter looks back--Tracy, in his rose-pink t-shirt, is holding his hand over his mouth and his leg is shaking. 

“Yes, Gerry, we will have an extra-long sectional,” he says back. Peter moans to himself, but Mr. Connolly’s face in the stands looks like murder and the vein in his forehead might explode, so he sets his cymbals on the ground, and drops into the pushups. Not that they’re really a problem anymore, but he still doesn’t want to get that close to the hot turf. 

“Go on, Peter’s still doing the right thing,” urges Tracy to the rest of the group. Peter can feel the rest of the band staring at them being punished, even though Mr. Connolly has called for a water break. 

Peter finishes his fifty pushups, stands back up, brushes the turf from his hands, pushes his sunglasses up into his hair, and tugs the hem of his t-shirt up to wipe his sweaty face off with it. 

_Gross; I am going to shower for five hours as soon as I can._

He looks up, and suddenly locks eyes with MJ, who has pushed her own sunglasses up into her hair, and apparently, she is refusing to stop staring at him, even though they are making heated eye contact ( _heated, or is he imagining something? Is this what the Twilight Zone feels like?_ ). Her hand covers her mouth slowly. She’s not the only one staring either, as he sees Sally Avril clutching her practice flag, and the dark-haired freshman named Kitty who giggles constantly in the cafeteria with her blonde friend Illyana--well, Kitty is giggling yet again with her flute dangling in her hands, and behind her, Illyana is gripping her clarinet so hard her fingers are turning white. He looks down-- _no boner, thank Jesus and Thor and Captain America_ \--and drops the hem of his t-shirt. Allie, the lone girl cymbalist, also hops up, and Peter makes a break for the water tent. 

“Wow, Petey, looks like you’ve got a little fan club after that display!” says Johnny, punching his arm inside the tent. Peter stuffs an orange slice in his mouth as fast as he can to avoid answering. “What is your workout routine? I want in once school starts back up!” 

“I...I don’t have one,” he mumbles. Wanda has wandered in, and she gives him the barest flash on a wink. 

“No? Just hit the genetic jackpot?”

“Something like that,” Peter says, and he’s sad to find that all the yellow Gatorade is gone, and only red is left. He drinks it anyways. “I’m so mad. That was so embarrassing. And now we have practice extra long this afternoon instead of free hour--I wanted to take a nap and call Ned.” 

“Who’s Ned?” asks Bobby, coming up to them with wet gauze wrapped around his wrists and ankles. 

“Oh, Ned’s my best friend since fifth grade. He’s not in band,” Peter says. 

“Looks like you’ve got a little fanbase going though,” Bobby says, quirking an eyebrow. 

“Go nuts, I don’t want ‘em,” Peter mumbles, looking for more Gatorade. 

“Well, one, I’m gay, Peter Parker--the sky’s blue, too, in case you need a reminder of obvious things, and two, it is fucking obvious that you and Michelle Jones have something going on,” Bobby says flatly. Peter chokes and spits out his water--Johnny kindly pats his back. 

“What?! You’re gay!? How was I supposed to know? A-a-and MJ and I don’t have anything going on,” he stammers.

“Denial is a river in Egypt, Peter, if that’s where you wanna swim,” Bobby says, as if he is burdened with glorious knowledge and purpose. He walks away, swiftly picking up his mellophone and joining Victor to walk in step back to the field. 

“I’ll race you to the forty yard line!” Johnny suggests a little too loudly. Peter rolls his eyes, but he runs with Johnny anyways--and wins.  


* * *

Peter is getting frustrated by this extra-long sectional--he’s already mastered roll-stepping, knows his cues pretty well, and hasn’t had any problems with the drill so far. Allie the sophomore also seems to be doing fine. The freshmen...well, this really just seems to be a disaster. 

Dinner break was rapidly approaching, and Tracy looks like he’d rather pull his hair out than try to scream at Felix that he did have to extend his arms out all the way, that Ian needed to learn when to move, and that Joey should, in fact, shut up from time to time. 

“Look! Just--just watch Peter and Allie do it!” Tracy wails. Peter sighs, and hops up to face the group with Allie. Tracy counts, and Peter successfully pulls off a crossover, crashes, and arcs the left cymbal up over his head and then back to parallel with his feet. “See, guys, it’s _cool_ if you _try_ and match the others, and if you _actually_ do it!” 

“Yeah, but Peter’s always yelling at us!” cries Toby. 

“Well, yeah, because you’re out of step and he’s trying to correct you!” snaps Allie. “Or you freeze when all we have to do is run up to Logan Green and Alex Jacobsen for their solos.” She tosses a golden braid over her shoulder. 

“Allie’s right,” Tracy agrees. 

By the time they finish, some progress has been made, and Peter’s so hungry, he thinks he could eat a mountain. He runs up to his room to stash his cymbals, and when he exits, dusk has fallen properly, and MJ is perched on the rock wall by the dorm’s entrance, reading a new book-- _Talking Back: Thinking feminist, thinking Black_ by bell hooks. 

“Uh, hey, MJ,” he says, coming up to her. He’s suddenly _very_ aware that he probably stinks to high heaven. 

“Hello, Peter,” she says, not looking at him. _I really need to call Ned soon_ , he thinks. She licks a thumb, turns a page, sighs. “Want to get some dinner?” 

Peter’s stomach growls--it never seems to stop these days. 

“I’ll take that as a yes. Let’s go. Angelica’s saving seats for us,” she says, marking her page and bouncing up. She’s in those really short shorts again, but has ditched the academic decathlon team t-shirt for a dark-green tank top-- _she has such pretty skin_ , he thinks, walking next to her. _Should I try to hold her hand? Say something, Peter!_

“Say, uh, why is that lady’s name all lower-case?” he asks, looking back to the book in her hand. 

“Who? Oh, bell hooks. It’s an equality thing, I think. Her pen name is her grandmother’s--her real name is Gloria Watkins. She’s very smart and approachable; I think I am going to start a protest to put her book _Feminism is for Everyone_ on the AP Composition reading list,” she says, squinting ahead. Her hair is out of its usual ponytail too, tonight, and it swings tantalizing over her shoulders. 

“Oh, uh, that sounds really good, really interesting,” he comments, and they flash their wristbands to get in--they have to be among the last students to trail in for dinner at this hour. 

“It’s about time we got some intersectional feminist icons in our curriculum,” she says, picking up a plate and beginning to fill it. He does the same. 

“So, uh, that was nice of Angelica to save us seats. I didn’t think you were friends with her?”

“Mmm, remains to be seen or made official, but she’s been an emotional crutch this week.”

“It’s only Tuesday?”

“Can you be sure about that?” 

“...yes.” 

She beams. His heart pounds. 

Angelica waves to them from a round table in the back, and Peter is thrilled that the two seats are next to each other. They settle in--Johnny and Susie are sitting with them, plus Cindy Moon, and Bobby and Victor. Peter settles in next to Bobby, and tries to keep his cool, as MJ settles in, and slouches on the table. 

“So, it’s Tuesday. What’s the good word in the boys’ dorm?” she asks, with a severe look. “Because in the girls’ dorm, it’s mostly a lot of yelling on the phone, Felicia snap-chatting Brad Davis _constantly_ back at home, and apparently, Flash Thompson sent Liz Allen a dick pic.” 

Peter gags and nearly spits out a bite of his sandwich--an appetizer because he plans on going back to get some of the stir-fried noodles that MJ has mounded on her plate. 

“Ugh, is this an offense that will get him kicked off decathlon?” Cindy asks. MJ delicately slurps a noodle through pursed lips, and shrugs. He tries not to stare. 

“Eh, didn’t happen on school grounds or school time. Not a punishable offense for me. The police, sure, if that’s Liz’s game,” MJ replies, shrugging one perfect shoulder. Bobby kicks his foot, and Peter gives him a look. On his way back to focus on MJ, Susie also throws him a significant look, tossing her blonde bob. _Does everybody know everything about me based on my face?_

“No excitement from the boys’ dorm. None. Nada. So boring,” Johnny says shortly, and stuffs a handful of fries in his mouth. 

“Mmm, don’t be so sure,” Victor says, “I’m sure that there’s some dick pics going around.” 

“Yeah? Who’re you sending ‘em to, Borkowski?” MJ challenges. 

“My boyfriend at my old school, thanks, Jones,” he says back coolly. “Unless you’re interested.” 

Peter wants to sink into the ground. MJ’s face betrays nothing. He looks from her, back to Victor, back to her. His neck is on fire. He looks at Bobby, then to Susie, chokes his sandwich down, stares at Victor, then back to Susie.

“I’ll pass. I don’t want to see any green pubes,” MJ replies. “Someone should take me into the boys’ dorm tonight. I’ll stir up some action for Storm.” 

“Peter can do it!” Bobby chimes. Peter feels torn--he is not opposed to going _anywhere_ with MJ, but it would break so many rules, and how would they get her in? 

“Great. The perfect person to take me in. Let’s do it!” 

* * *

“MJ, we’re gonna be in so much trouble--do we really have to do this?” he asks as they push the door to the lobby open. 

“Yes. I want to do it. Look, we’re already past the front desk worker--she’s playing a click-and-point game and is too absorbed to notice us. Hi, Mr. Burns, how are you?” she says, waving to the chaperone on duty. She breezes past him too, and pushes the door open to the stairs. “Second floor, right?” 

“Yes. Wait, how’d you know?” he asks, feeling like his heart is going to explode again. She jogs up the first few stairs. 

“I’m very studious and observant,” she says. “Race you! Johnny won’t be long behind us!” She jogs up a few more, and Peter’s weak in the knees, but forces himself to not look at her butt, and to run up the stairs with her. 

As soon as they open the door to the floor, they are met with the blaring of music, and the smell Peter now associates with the disastrous party at Liz Toomes’s house sophomore year. A blown-up sex doll bounces through the hallway that is clogged with boys. Josh Haag is screaming down the hall, mostly naked but for some very creative face paint. 

“Well, Mr. Connolly always says to never take anything from him, but now I see that Josh really has nothing to give,” MJ comment drily. Peter thinks he might faint, and he stuffs his hands in his pockets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of these incidents did, in fact, happen at my band camp, but not all at the same time. Peter just gets lucky with ALL THE CHAOS at once. 
> 
> If I had to cast this, Susie would be played by Kiernan Shipka with her Sabrina Spellman bob, Johnny would be Ross Lynch with not his Harvey Kinkle hair (preferably the white-blonde hair he had on the Disney Channel--did I just date myself again?), Victor would be played by David Mazouz with dye-job of Victor's blue and green hair, Bobby would be played by Corey Fogelmanis (this one was the hardest) OR a young Jared Keeso type. Angelica...I am honestly torn between Santana Caress Benitez type (Benitez is a little old to play a teen, but someone who is New York Puerto Rican at the very least) OR Amybeth McNulty (because she plays intense really well, which would be fun with Zendaya's performance of MJ). 
> 
> Leave a comment, a kudos, your thoughts on my casting, or more head canons for Avengers in marching band. Each one brings me joy!


	4. Very Late Tuesday Night & Quite Early Wednesday Morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I graduated high school with NO LESS than NINE Joshuas, so please, humor my naming practicalities here. I thought it was funny.

Peter, thankful for Dr. Banner’s earplugs still fitting snugly in his ears, pushes MJ into his room, but it takes Josh Haag’s minions, Josh Rodriguez and Josh Miller, less than five minutes to bang on the door. MJ is stretched luxuriously on his bed, flipping through her bell hooks book.

“What do you guys want?” he asks. Both of the other Joshes have face paint on too, but thankfully, both have pants on. Someone--probably Barry, Peter bets--has managed to turn the hall lights almost completely off. 

“We bring libations for the evening! We’ve made skittle dew!” shouts Josh Miller, brandishing a set of two liters. Peter groans; skittle dew is not good news. 

“What’s skittle dew?” Johnny’s arrived and is asking questions. MJ is at Peter’s back--her hand is on his shoulder and he is clenching every muscle to keep calm because this feels like panic and ecstasy at the same time. Johnny waves to MJ, pushes his way into the little circle.

“Storm! Sweet, okay, so, skittle dew is this!” says Miller. Rodriguez carries a big cooler, which sloshes with some brew that is not a color that occurs in nature. “I take two family-sized bags of skittles, and dump them into 2-liter bottles of Mountain Dew, and let ‘em sit for two weeks. _Then!_ I mix that with Rockstar, Monster, a Red Bull in every color, and six 5-Hour Energies, then add a shit-ton of vodka. And now we’re here, offering it. To you. All. What’s Michelle doing in here?”

“Sold--hit me, captain!” Johnny shouts, and Josh Rodriguez dunks a cup in the slosh in the cooler, and offers it to him. 

“I want some, hand it over, Miller!” snaps MJ, and she gently shoves Peter over. 

“Holy. Fucking. Shitballs. My eyes hurt from drinking that, but it tastes like drinking lightning!” Johnny exclaims, and goes back in for more. MJ gulps some down, winces, and her dark eyes go wide. 

“Oh my god. I think I might throw up,” she crows joyfully, staring at Peter like it’s the first time she’s ever seen him. 

Crashes resound from across the hall, and Charlie and Barry burst through the door. 

“We tried to make another turkey, but it exploded!” Charlie shouts. _Where do they keep getting all these turkeys?_ , Peter wonders, but MJ grabs his wrist and drags him to the carnage of Charlie and Barry’s homemade slow-cooker. Peter tries very hard to rattle off the elements of the periodic table in order to not panic too much about the fact that MJ _is touching him. Again. Holy shit._

The hallway explodes with dancing and yelling, and Peter and MJ are jostled into a bundle as a conga line bursts out of Javier Rosario’s room--he and the rest of the multi-quad bros lead the line. Peter squints, and he’s pretty sure he sees Bobby on the other side of the conga line, which is quickly dissolving into a grind train, making out with Dexter Dunham against the brick wall. The crowd throbs again, and Peter is shoved into MJ more fully, until he can feel his hips clank against hers. He jumps back as far as he can, and points to Bobby and Dexter wrapped up in each other.

“Um, isn’t Dexter Dunham dating that saxophone player, Ava Wilson?” he shouts into MJ’s ear. 

She shrugs, replies “Maybe? Who cares?”

“I mean, I’m sharing a bathroom with the guy who is making out with him across that grind train?” he shouts, pointing, but his arm is grabbed by Harry as the train passes by, and he’s whipped into the line in front of Harry. This is entirely too homoerotic for Peter, who has never really found guys attractive, and apparently neither does Harry, who is grinding against him with a lot of energy but little enthusiasm. 

“I told you to stay away from my butt, Harry!” he jokes, feet searching for the floor. Harry is much taller than he is, and so is the guy in front of him (he thinks it’s Logan Green); they’re smashed so close together that Peter is not sure he’s even touching the floor. 

“Pete, you need to relax! Here, finish my skittle dew!” Harry sloshes the cup into Peter’s mouth--it tastes like sugar-coated tin foil. He does swallow some, but he’s not thrilled about it. The song switches, and he can’t see MJ as he is propelled down the hall, sneakers sliding against the linoleum.

Aiming carefully, Peter launches himself out of the line as soon as his feet find purchase, turning on the sticky factor (gotta find a better name for that) to grip the wall and skitter up for a moment where no one is touching him. No one seems to notice in the drunken haze. _Where the hell are any of the chaperones?_ He spies MJ, who is doing an awkward shuffle to “Who Booty Is It,” holding another cup of what must be more skittle dew, and clearly trying to blend in. 

“Exciting enough for you?” he asks. 

“I guess! Adam Downey gave me a bunch of whiskey! I think I like it,” she replies. The song switches from Chingo Bling--he recognizes it as The Weeknd’s new single. “I like this song!” _That’s a surprise._ His head is throbbing--the music and flickers of phones taking pictures and smells are starting to overwhelm him--but MJ does start dancing properly, and _wow, she’s so pretty._ His throat is ridiculously dry under the sweet tin foil taste, and he thinks about joining her, maybe grasping her hands and putting her arms around his neck--he really _wouldn’t_ mind joining the grind train with MJ, even though she’d probably strangle him for objectifying her. 

Any semblance of his dancing-with-MJ plan is foiled by an explosion to the left that ruins his train of thoughts, and more guys pour out of that room with a cloud of skunk-y weed smoke. 

“Elliot threw some M-80’s down his toilet--it’s shattered!” shouts Cayden Hicks joyfully above the din. Peter rolls his eyes; Charlie and Barry’s slow cooker is one thing, but a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man can’t condone shattering toilets in dorms. He feels a little woozy--fresh air would be great--but MJ grabs his wrist in her long fingers and yanks. 

MJ continues to drag him down the hall to the source of the loud, thumping music--Peter weighs the pros and cons of shifting his wrist to hold her hand. Busting in, Peter finds that there’s a blinding strobe light going off, and the sound even overwhelms him through Dr. Banner’s earplugs. Gino Del Mastro and Jake Washington are trying to do some kind of stop-motion dance to their thumping music. It smells like beer and old shoes, and Peter thinks he may faint. 

“What’s Michelle doing here?” Gino yells. He picks up his phone, and out of nowhere, Johnny jumps in front of her. 

“We’re just having a good time!” Johnny yells, throwing his hands in the air to dance around, hiding MJ from the camera. “Watch out for your step-moms, I’m coming in hot!” 

“MJ, MJ, I gotta get outta here, I’m...there’s way too much going on,” Peter begs quietly. He can only bring himself to touch her elbow. She gives him an inscrutable look that softens quickly. She takes his arm-- _ahahaha, so much touching_ , he thinks through the hyper-ventilating--and pulls him out of the room. 

“Get out of my _way_ , fuckos,” she yells as she drags him with her to his room. Guys scatter left and right; but then again, MJ is tall and disarming, well, and Peter thinks, beautiful. She shoves him in the room, shuts the door, and locks it. 

Peter collapses stomach-first on his bed, and puts the pillow over his head--it’s blessedly darker and quieter under the pillow. 

“Peter, are you okay? Are you having a panic attack? I mean, I’ve had my fair share, I get it. Anything...Anything I should do?” she asks. He feels the mattress sink as she sits next to him. 

“Can...can you shut the blinds? And maybe put some towels against the door?” She gets up again, and he hears the rattle of the blinds. She flicks Johnny’s fan on, his too, points them more at him, and the sounds muffle a little--a towel must be at the door. 

“Is that better?” she asks. He’s never heard her be so gentle. 

“Mmmhmm,” he mumbles. “ _Fuckos_ really gets people out of the way, doesn’t it?”

“It’s my superpower. Um,” she inhales sharply, “Do you--should I--would you...would you like me to rub your back? That sometimes helps me when I freak out. Well, I mean, my mom does it for me, not you, or...” _What? Oh my god, this isn’t real, this is a dream._

“Yes, please,” he mumbles again, hoping it’s not a dream. There’s a hitch in her breath, he can hear it, but she presses her finger to his neck, and he’s suddenly in a weird state of overdrive and relaxation, but she trails them down his back-- _god, I have to stink so bad by now_ \--and wow, that feels nice. Her hand brushes lightly up and down until he’s comfortably drowsy and passes out into blissful sleep. 

When Peter wakes up, it’s blissfully dark and cool in the room, and...and someone is smashed against him in the twin extra-long. _Did Johnny drunkenly pass out in the wrong bed?_ His head has ended up on the right side of the pillow, and _oh shit._

He has a raging stiffie and it’s pressed up against what has to be Johnny. But you know, the waist that his right arm is draped over is awfully slim to be super-fit Johnny Storm, so he takes a deep breath--lemon and sandalwood and sweat fills his nose. _This has to be a dream, MJ smells like that._

He cracks an eye open, and with the barest strip of light that’s coming in through the blinds, he sees that it is _not_ Johnny that is smashed on to him, but this is not a dream and based on the cloud of curly hair, it’s MJ snuggled up to him. _Oh my god, shit like this only happens in movies!_

He could sing, except that would wake her up, and then probably bring her attention this stiff-as-fuck rage-tent, and that would be _terrible_. Like, end-of-the-world-again, sink-into-the-earth-in-shame terrible. _Okay, breathe, don’t enjoy this too-too much (but you could probably enjoy it_ a little _), assess the situation. I gotta call Ned._

Peter licks his lips--so dry--and gets both eyes open. MJ is snoring gently, adorably even, as he carefully extracts himself from MJ, though he’d rather bury his face in her hair-- _and treat her bodily autonomy respectfully, we’re not an asshole here, Peter_. He grabs the wall behind him and sticks both hands on, both feet, scuttles up the wall quietly, and sees that Johnny did not make it back to bed. Peter hopes he’s okay. He drops softly to the floor, grabs his phone--she even plugged it in for him! MJ’s rests next to it, plugged into Johnny’s charger, and he slips into the bathroom. 

He has thirty seconds of mindless panic in the bathroom. _Prioritize, Peter. What first?_

First--the boner has _got_ to go. Second, as May would say, he smells like garbage, and in the mirror, his hair is doing that curly thing he feels conflicted about, so shower. Third...third...gotta call Ned. Phone says it’s three in the morning...ehhh, it’s summer. Ned’s awake. 

He calls Ned first. 

“Peter, why are you still awake? It’s three in the morning!” comes Ned’s voice through the speaker. Peter shoves himself in the shower stall for more sound-proofing. 

“Ned, it’s three and you’re still awake! I’ve got a _huge_ problem! Problems. Enormous. Tons of them,” he whispers. 

“Peter, why are you whispering?”

“MJ’s asleep in my bed and I--”

“MJ is _in_ your _bed_?!” 

“Shhh, yes, and Wanda says that there’s a ton of enhanced humans here and they are coming to our school this year, and Wanda’s not really baby-sitting me, but she’s supposed to keep an eye on them, and my roommate is gonna drive me up the _wall_! I mean, yeah, I know I can crawl up the wall myself, but you know what I mean. And then it was party night and all the Joshes made skittle dew and then I lost it in front of Gino and Jake and Eliot blew up a toilet, and then Harry pulled me into the grind train, well, that was before the toilet, and I would have rather been in the grind train with MJ, and then she rubbed my back until I fell asleep and now she’s in my bed, and, and-- _and I have a raging boner!_ ” he races to spit all the information out. 

It takes Ned a second to answer, which is fine because Peter needs to catch his breath. 

“Wow,” says Ned finally, “And I thought I had problems. But holy crap--more enhanced! You could start a team, Peter!” 

No sooner than Ned takes another breath to say more, Peter hears the weird zippy, Fourth-of-July sparkler sound that means Dr. Strange is here. Why would he be visiting Peter at band camp? 

“Ned, hang on,” he says, and throws the shower curtain open, and steps out a little. One of Dr. Strange’s portals is open, and the wizard is walking through. 

“What’s happening?” asks Ned. 

“Uhh, it’s Dr. Strange. In my bathroom,” Peter replies. 

“Mr. Parker. Why...why are you in the shower on the phone? And--what the hell?” The wizard sees _everything_ , and Peter crouches to the floor--his mesh shorts are not ideal for hiding boners in. 

“I am on the phone with my friend Ned, Dr. Strange,” he says through gritted teeth. Dr. Strange narrows his eyes, grimaces. 

“Do I even want to know?” Strange deigns. 

“It’s not what you think!” _Shit shit shit_ , just when he thought things couldn’t get any worse. 

“Look, Parker, I’ve got big news, but I’ll come back when you’re...decent,” says the wizard. “Where are we, exactly?” 

“I’m at band camp; didn’t Dr. Banner tell you? I thought you were friends or something!”

“Band camp? Hmpf,” Strange scoffs, and crosses his arms. He looks at Peter, still crouching on the ground. “Clarinet?” 

Peter rolls his eyes, groans, “Cymbals, Jesus, Doctor, call back later!” 

“Tell Dr. Strange I said hi!” Ned says on the other line. 

“Ned says hi, Doctor,” Peter repeats, holding the phone out. Strange has one foot in the portal, but he looks back with a great sigh. 

“Hi, Ned. How’s the model Millennium Falcon going?” 

“It’s great, thanks!” 

“Gotta go, Ned, bye! Thanks for the advice!”

But as soon as he hangs up, the doctor’s portal is closed. 

_Okay, well, shower, and deal with this boner next...and then deal with MJ._

* * *

The shower is blissfully hot and he soaps up and washes his hair (he sneaks some of Victor’s fancy stuff; it smells much nicer than the Suave May packed for him), and takes care of the boner by remembering that movie he bought on Mr. Stark’s dime in Berlin (MJ makes a brief, classy, and understated appearance in his thoughts, if he’s being honest). Drying off, he doesn’t really want to put the mesh shorts back on, and the white t-shirt with the outline of his sweaty face is not wearable again until May super-washes it, and those briefs have seen much better days, so he wraps the towel around his waist really tight and pads out into the room. 

MJ has rolled over in bed, and has pulled the sheets over herself, and is still snoring, so Peter raids his suitcase. Yanks on some compression shorts real fast, and a new set of mesh shorts, annnnd digs around, to find an old Go-Go’s t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, that typically belongs to May. Well, it’s better than nothing, he supposes, and tosses his wet towel and the one MJ had stuffed by the door back in the bathroom. Johnny is still absent from the room, so he reels around to MJ. 

It’s tempting, he considers, to crawl back into bed _with her_ , but that doesn’t seem quite right. She’ll be in so much trouble if she’s not found in her own bed in the proper morning. So he settles on waking her to brainstorm. 

Sitting on the side of the bed, he strokes her shoulder lightly. 

“MJ. MJ. MJ, you gotta get up,” he whispers. She rolls over toward him, bleary-eyed, and is half-awake and smiles dreamily. His heart jumps into his throat again. 

“Where am I, Peter?” she croaks. 

“Uh, you’re, uh, in a good place, but it’s the, uh, the wrong place for you,” he rambles. She gets up more fully, her flinty stare back, sits up on an elbow.

“Are you trying to tell me that I died, went to heaven, but should actually be in hell, Peter? Are you telling me to go to hell?” 

“Uh, no. I am telling you that it’s like three-thirty in the morning and you fell asleep in my bed. Last night. Or sometime this morning. And that I don’t want to get you in trouble for not being in your bed this morning, wait that came out wrong; I want you to be in your own bed, not mine, and be out of trouble. Does that make sense?” 

She blinks slowly at him, punches him in the arm, and smiles a little. 

“I’ve got it handled. Angelica always covers. She’s an excellent emotional crutch.” 

“How...how are you getting out? And getting back in?” he asks, as she gathers her things together. 

“The doors, duh,” she replies, and she ruffles his damp hair and leaves. He watches her walk out the back door of his dorm, then through his window, she strides across the dewy grass to the girls wing, and into a door, with no consequence-- _ugh, she is so freaking cool_. From a window on the second floor that doesn’t quite match up with his, he sees her wave. He waves back. 

It’s in this moment that Peter realizes he’s _deep_ in the kind of mushy, candy-hearts, sharing-a-milkshake, wanting-to-make-her-laugh-until-her-stomach-hurts, pining and heartsick puppy love with Michelle “MJ” Jones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have you picked up on my love of writing awkward-situation-Peter? It's my favorite. He's my favorite when in weird situations. And why has Dr. Strange showed up?! Is he hanging around to make flugelhorn jokes and giving shaving lessons?! Tune in next time! f
> 
> Leave a comment, a kudos, a head canon of what Stephen Strange was like in high school, or general love--it brings joy!


	5. Wednesday Afternoon & Evening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PDA! Adventures! Trombone-based shenanigans! And more whiskey! Read on, MacDuff.

Admittedly, Peter feels he has recovered from his sensory overload by the time he gets up again, but his heartsickness over MJ has only gotten worse. He clams up any time he sees her throughout Wednesday, remembering her gentle voice in his room, the feel of her hand wrapped around his wrist, the tickle of her hair in his nose. Johnny provides some distraction, having finally found his place in the Midtown band, so his antics increase.

In fact, Johnny began the day with a brief “modeling session” during the mid-morning water break, during which he walked on his hands to the water tent, let his shirt fall off, and then proceeded to wave it in Felicia Hardy’s and Liz Allen’s faces while strutting around. Peter is very confused by the fact that both girls seem to find it so entertaining. 

“Johnny will never stop embarrassing me in public,” Susie confides in him, sipping some water. Peter looks down to dainty, five-foot-tall Susie Storm, with her white-blonde bob and upturned nose.

“Tell me about it--he was a nightmare last night. I don’t know where he ended up falling asleep,” he admits, wrapping damp gauze around his burning hands. Wednesday afternoon is usually the point in which they’ve practiced so much that his wrists ache and the pads of his hands won’t stop buzzing. But his feet are doing okay, and that’s not something to treat lightly.

“Oh, that’s very normal for him. He spends about two nights out of the week at home--always off doing something stupid the other five, especially since he got his license,” she replies. “Say, Peter, would you like to come meet Reed, my boyfriend, in his apartment tonight? He likes science, too.” 

Peter had forgotten Susie’s mysterious boyfriend until this moment, but he smiles and agrees as Johnny flips himself right-side up and they trudge back into the hot sun--once this final set of runs is done, it’s free time, and Peter thinks he might ask MJ to come to the pool with him.

“Alright, we’re running from the top of ‘Caelum Fero,’ and cymbals! We’re not playing chicken anymore, right?” shouts Mr. Connolly from his loudspeaker in the stands.

“Please, don’t keep embarrassing me in front of the rest of the instructors,” Tracey begs, walking by their line, nudging Felix’s cymbals up, pushing Ian back a little. “Stretch your arms wide on that flare, and at least _try _that crossover.” Peter squares his shoulders, and watches Felicia’s hands bounce-- _one, two, three,_ and he sucks in a breath on four and starts his crab-walk to the left with the rest of the drumline.__

____

__

Another four counts and he clap-crashes, slides, listens as the rest of the music swells around him and the whole band leans to the left as the brass and woodwinds start crescendoing. His heart seems to leap in time with it as he roll-steps forward for twelve counts, the line stretching diagonally between the forty-yard line and the thirty-yard line. He then rocks forward in a change-up to slide back for six, then another crescendo and the cymbals finish the phrase with a big arcing crash; Peter crashes his right cymbal across the titled left and keeps pushing it, raising it high over and around his head like a shimmering sun at noon. It’s almost effortless to watch the line come back to parallel with the press box--he shouts “Cover down!” because he can easily see that Marco is struggling to keep even with Allie and Joey at the other end. Marco nips back in faster, short-clapping his cymbals on cue-- _progress!_ , Peter thinks. 

Now they have to hustle backwards even faster, and they all drop to go two-to-four, covering more ground in bigger steps. The Spidey-sense is still coming in handy, as he feels his arm hair jump when the tubas come close to his left, meet his line, and then break off in more fast two-to-four steps back to the right. Mikey McGregor’s elbow grazes Peter’s, they get so close. 

Finally, they mark time, and Peter leads as they pull their elbows out at rest position. Just two yards ahead of him is Harry, beating in time on the largest bass, sweating profusely. Peter catches his eye and winks. Harry winks back, just as the bass line has to haul themselves backwards to the right end-zone, the wind instruments swirling in complex designs in front of them. MJ sticks out like a sore thumb, towering above Angelica’s red braids and Jenny Cromwell’s puff of black curls. 

There’s another slide-crash, and then another crescendo swells, so Peter flips the band of the right cymbal over his wrist to parallel crash into a two-handed arc-- _and everybody nails it! It looks so cool!_ , he rejoices, as then the band quiets to transition to the next piece-- “The Land of Make-Believe.” 

This is a softer song, their ballad in the show, and there’s more soft claps than anything else, so it’s a minute to rest. The saxophones slide back toward the drumline, make a sharp pivot left, and go that way--Peter watches as MJ squares her hips sharply to the press box, pushing the little saxophone out as far as the neck-strap will allow. Jubilation Lee prances by him, a white flag flittering with her. The next phrase ends, and his heart starts to joyously thud in time for the opening bass drum thuds of “Sing Sing Sing”, which has been mashed up with the Star Wars’ cantina band song--every time they get to this part, Peter freaks out a little, and tries to imagine how excited Ned will be when he sees the show for the first time. 

Too soon, it’s the drum solo, and Peter puts the flats of the cymbals out and chugs left-up-right-up-left-up-right-up in time with Harry’s bass beats. The multi-quads and the basses give bows back and forth to each other, and it’s Ian’s time to shine. 

‘Cept he doesn’t. Ian takes one step, and stops, and Peter watches in horror as Marco, Joey, and Felix start to collide with Ian. _For fuck’s sake, I am not going down like this!_ , he thinks to himself. 

The basses are still thundering, and so Peter channels MJ for a moment and hollers, “Let’s _go_ , fuckos!” 

Ian snaps out of his reverie, and Marco, Joey, and Felix catch their balance, and the whole cymbal line makes their way to meet Logan Green and Alex Jacobsen to surround them and wave their cymbals as they duel each other. _Finally made it, thank Jesus and Thor and the Force and all the saints_ , he thinks to himself, a drop of sweat dribbling down his left cheek as he looks to see that everyone is on cue when Logan and Alex trade on and off with riffs. 

Mr. Connolly cuts them off as the solos finish, with a “Nice work, cymbals! Glad to see the extra work paid off! Gang, go enjoy your rest time--I’ll see you later for evening rehearsal!” 

“I heard you yell ‘fuckos’ at those freshbabies!” Johnny shouts, running up next to him, “Takin’ it from your girlfriend MJ?" 

Petter half smiles and rolls his eyes. “It’s an attention getter, and MJ’s not my girlfriend." 

“But you want her to be,” chimes in Bobby, coming in from out of nowhere. His smile is icy-white and broad, but Peter still sees the hickey on his collarbone, even though Bobby’s tried to cover it up by tying a bandana around his neck. 

“Well, I dunno, maybe. I’m considering it,” he admits. At that moment, MJ whips by--Liz Toomes seemed to float in and out of his vision, but MJ moves with purpose in and out of his life. He likes that about her. He’s not sure if he blushes, seeing her golden-brown shoulder blades twist and turn as she stretches in the water line. 

“Ask her out already, will ya?!” insists Victor, brandishing his clarinet threateningly. 

“Alright, alright. I was thinking of asking her to come to the pool with me later,” he says. Victor smirks. “Well, actually, Susie asked me to come meet her boyfriend later...maybe I should ask MJ to come with.” 

“Like a double-date? With my sister and the egghead? Have fun,” Johnny says, rolling his eyes. He takes two long strides, and then presses his trumpet to his lips, blowing out several runs from Alex’s solo. 

“Storm, shaddup! Jesus!” yells someone who sounds like...probably Casey Batista, one of the trumpet section leaders. Johnny tosses back some side-eye, but keeps playing. 

“Yes, I know I’m basically Jesus,” he spits back to Casey when he's done. 

“Egghead?” Peter asks. 

“Yeah, Reed’s doing a second Bachelor’s in some kinda physics here--instead of high school, he went to college and got a degree in mechanical engineering. He’s a real brainiac. Amazes me that he has a girlfriend though, but I think Susie’s more in charge of that aspect of his life than he actually is,” Johnny says easily, tossing back his golden head to catch some more of the sun’s rays. His aviator sunglasses catch the sun--Johnny has had the luxury of tanning in the sun, the muscles of his arms golden-brown under the sleeves of a red Ferrari t-shirt. Peter, by contrast, has gotten a crispy sunburn over his nose and cheeks and forehead that give him a set of raccoon eyes. 

“That’s wild! Like Tony Stark or something!” exclaims Bobby. Peter’s heart pangs for a minute--it still hurts to think of Mr. Stark. Bobby grabs the door into the dorm’s lobby and they swing into the relief of the cool building. There’s no AC, but it still feels nice to be out of the sun. 

“Yeah, like Tony Stark,” Peter murmurs as they walk up the stairs. 

* * *

Later, having had a quick shower and changed into some swimming trunks, Peter heads outside to see if he can find MJ and Angelica’s room in the girls’ dorm. He follows the front sidewalk, up the small hill where the sidewalk lies between two bricked walls and some overgrown flowering honeysuckle bushes, and is mostly glad that the clouds have moved to cover the sun. 

He is decidedly less glad when the Fourth-of-July sparkler sound and burning smells comes from the right, and he turns around to watch Dr. Strange rip a hole in the space-time continuum ( _still so freaking cool_ , he thinks) and step through. 

“Oh good, you, ah, are not in the throes of teenage ecstasy with Ned on the phone now,” the doctor quips, looking down at him with a slight frown. Peter chokes a little, and his face heats. 

“Ah, Doctor, you are _totally_ misreading that situation. There’s nothing like that going on between me and Ned, there was this girl I like in my room, and she was in the bed with me and--” he starts to babble. 

“Stop--I don’t need, or _want_ , to know any more.” 

“Okay, so why’re you here, at band camp with me, Doctor?” Peter crosses his arms over his chest. 

“It’s not _with_ you, but more your proximity to someone,” the doctor says slowly. 

“Who? Wanda? Call on her yourself--she brought a cell phone, even.” 

“No, not _Wanda_. She’s out of my reach. It’s one of your...classmates, I suppose. Illyana Rasputin,” he says, stroking his goatee. Peter frowns--he’s heard the name. 

“Illyana? I think she’s a freshman who plays flute or clarinet. Why?” 

“Miss Rasputin has recently mutated, and her skills in magic have set off every ward that Wong and I have set up from Wakefield to the South Shore. I need _you_ to get ahold of her for us. She _must_ be tutored or _else_.” The doctor’s blue eyes burn intensely. 

“What?! Isn’t this a job for Wanda or something? Wanda’s, like, kinda magic too! What is your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man gonna do about it? Web her to a tree so she can’t wave her hands around?!” Peter gasps. “I am _not_ gonna go up to some freshman girl and say, ‘Hey, I kinda know this wizard in New York, and he wants to talk to you!’ What the hell am I supposed to say to her?!” 

“You’ll think of something. But Miss Maximoff, under no circumstances, should learn of this. Do you swear?” Dr. Strange asks. The cape-- _that weird-ass, living cape that doesn’t have any manners_ \--flaps forward, and seems to jab a finger at Peter. Strange starts doing his finger-tutting-type thing, casually tearing through space and every law of matter that Peter knows, opening a hole back to his headquarters. 

“I-I, I swear. I won’t tell Wanda. But why?” Peter asks, sheepish. 

“Because I said so,” says the doctor, and before Peter can protest anything, disappears through the hole without even a wave. 

“Oh, come on!” Peter groans to himself, leaning back and tossing his head up to the sky. 

“Come on what?” asks a voice. Peter whips around, and sees MJ walking down the path toward him, her nose buried in a book-- _Eloquent Rage_ by Brittany Cooper this time. Her dark eyes barely flick up to look at him before slipping back down to the pages. 

“Uhhh...come on to the pool with me? I could use some company while swimming!” he blurts, trying to maintain some sense of composure. MJ’s eyes flicker back up. 

“Ah, sure. I’ve got my suit on. Lead on, MacDuff,” she says. 

“Okay, then, off we go,” he says, and walks awkwardly next to her.

At the college’s pool, Peter suddenly feels a little nervous as they part into locker rooms to stow their stuff. He wheedles around on the wet floor of the actual pool room, watching Otis Bardowski do flips off the diving board, smelling the chlorine and feeling heady but he’s not entirely sure if it’s the pool smell or the chili cheese dog he had for lunch or maybe he’s just hungry again. Why is he always so hungry? 

MJ does eventually emerge, without _Eloquent Rage_ in hand, in a bikini with a high-necked olive top and black bottoms, and she scrunches her nose at him, but gives a little half-smile that makes his heart _pound_. He beams, bouncing up on his toes.

“I think I’m gonna drown a quad-bro, just for funsies,” she says, tossing an annoyed look to Otis. “They’re such a bunch of fuckos.”

“You know, I keep using ‘fuckos’ and it seems to, uh, get people off their asses,” he comments. _What should he be doing with his hands right now? Is there anything in his teeth? Is his hair doing that thing again?_ He settles for hiking his red trunks up again a little.

“It’s a superpower, I’m telling you. Well, I’m getting in the water. You plan on melting or something?” she asks, and she takes a big leap in, all arms and legs and angles. He feels better, and follows in.

“Say, um, Susie Storm invited me to come with her to meet her college boyfriend later tonight, do you wanna come hang out with us?” he asks shyly.

“Oh, I’ll have to think about it. Someone did keep me out awful late last night,” she says dryly, and splashes him with a swift jab of her long arm.

“Oh, um, okay, that’s fine,” he says, and dives underwater to hide a rapidly rising blush. He watches a pair of feet dive in in front of him, and then he is forcefully yanked up around the chest.

“Gotcha, Parker!” shouts Johnny as he’s hauled up out of the water. Harry is there too, and he sees Eddie Brock cannonballing in. “Now’s the perfect time for back-flip tutoring!”

“I can’t do a backflip!” Peter chokes out. MJ stares at him, mouth quirked pointedly--at least someone thinks this is funny.

“Pete, you are weirdly flexible--I bet you can,” says Harry. _Not helping, Harry!_ , Peter thinks. He rubs the chlorine water out of his eyes, and Harry, Eddie, and Johnny all come into focus better. They all have round bruises on the center of their chests.

“What’s with this? New cult?” asks MJ, gesturing in a circle around her own chest.

“We tried using my trombone plunger as a suction cup!” Eddie guffaws, pushing his long brown hair behind his ears. “It left these giant hickeys!” 

“Why--why would you do that? Didn’t it hurt?” asks Peter.

“Well, fuck yeah, it did, Parker!” shouts Harry. “C’mon, let’s go on the diving board like we did last year!” Harry, taller and bulkier, drags Peter with him. He lowers his voice, “Mary Jane is watching--gotta keep her interested.” He tosses his head towards the red-haired girl who had been sitting on his lap on the bus to camp--Peter’s since learned that she’s on color guard. She is curvy and her red bikini shows off a lot of cleavage. She smiles and waves as Harry exits the pool with Peter. 

Peter looks back at MJ, a little sheepish.

“Good luck, fucko!” she calls, floating on her back to the shallow end. He decides that he likes her bikini better than new-girl Mary Jane’s. The line to the diving board isn’t long, but fortunately, Eddie and Johnny are too busy horsing around to be watching him. Peter hikes up his trunks and ties them tighter--no one here needs to see...uh, see the ol’ web-shooter if they hit the water too hard.

Harry, on the varsity swim team, takes a swan-dive with barely a splash, and the pool-goers clap politely. When he bursts to the surface, Mary Jane squeals and jumps on Harry in a wet, splashy hug. Peter goes to the end, thinking-thinking-thinking, because he kinda wants something like that from MJ-- _can’t do the backflip, gotta go for a front flip, maybe a double?_

At the end of the board, he tries not to make too much eye contact with MJ, and bounces lightly. _Just imagine the absolute_ air _I could get if I went all Spider-Man on this thing,_ he thinks and looks to the ceiling, doing a quick trig calculation for fun, imagining bouncing on this board, throwing a web to the ceiling, and swinging around the room. Of course, he has no webs, but he bounces a little more, and hears Johnny yell, “Let’s go, Pete! I’m fallin’ asleep here!”

Peter pushes down twice, and lifts off, and his heart soars a little-- _flying and jumping is the_ best _!_ His feet leave the board, and he has to force himself not to bring the soles of his feet together like he does on patrol. He does, however, tuck himself inward, and circles in the air-- _one flip, two flips, straighten out to dive!_ He hits the water with a splash and the world goes blessedly quiet for a minute-- _need to figure out this Spidey-ADHD one of these days._

When he surfaces, Johnny and Company are yelling wildly-- “Hell yeah, Parker! Look at you! Fuck yeah!” He pushes his wet hair back and glances to MJ, who is smirking. It’s a good smirk, but she’s not rushing at him like new-girl Mary Jane. But she’s smiling, and that’s progress.

* * *

“C’mon, let’s go!” shouts Susie as they’re leaving evening practice. “Just bring those with! Reed and Ben won’t mind!” She gestures to his cymbals with her clarinet--Susie brandishes that thing like a sword. Peter shrugs, and tosses them in their carry-case to haul over his shoulder, as Susie pulls apart her clarinet to put it in her little case. Johnny follows them, as they pass the saxophones.

“MJ, still wanna come?” he asks, seeing MJ’s willowy form and black t-shirt. She grimaces, looks to Angelica, who frowns, and she looks back.

“Can’t. Extra sectional tonight. See you at breakfast?” Her voice is soft when she asks this, and Peter wonders if three days of breakfast into a row together makes it a tradition or a ritual or a regular...a regular date.

“Definitely,” he grins, and waves, Susie dragging him by the forearm. She’s _strong_ for such a tiny person. Johnny trots after them, swinging his trumpet loosely in his hand. 

“You’re coming? To see Reed? And Ben?” Susie asks, brows furrowed, as they walk along the path in the dusk. Peter sees Wanda coming, and looks pointedly at the ground. _She knows, she knows, let’s not think about Dr. Strange’s visit this afternoon._ He still hasn’t figured out what to do about this Illyana girl and her deal--but he has time. And Susie’s boyfriend’s a genius, so really, he’s just doing some collaborative thinking, even though he has no idea what will happen. 

Susie stops them at an apartment building, and fiercely dials onto a keypad.

“ _Hello?_ ” buzzes a voice on the other end.

“Benjy? It’s Susie! I’ve brought company!” she crows--Susie’s smile is a mega-watt lightbulb in the moment.

There’s a pause, and the voice, Benjy presumably, buzzes, “ _Is Hothead one of ‘em?_ ”

Susie sucks in a breath.

“Yeeeees, but he’ll be on his best behavior, promise!” She looks up and over at Johnny, Johnny Storm, who clears her height-wise by almost a foot, an eyebrow cocked menacingly and a steely glint in her blue eyes. Johnny bites his lip, and nod-shrugs.

“ _Fiiiiiine, buzzing you up!_ ” says the voice with a sigh. Susie leads them up some blessedly air-conditioned stairs to a third-floor apartment, and knocks forcefully. There’s a crash inside the apartment, and the door is flung open by a human approximately the shape of a brick, with a brown crew cut and blue eyes.

“Benjy! Thanks for buzzing us!” Susie crows again, jumping and hugging the door-opener.

“Ya, no problem, Susie-Q, but it’s Hothead here I’m confused about,” says the guy, who has _the thickest_ Lower East Side accent that Peter’s ever heard on someone under the age of sixty. In cargo shorts and a Dodgers t-shirt, the human brick stumps into the apartment--out of the corner of his eye, Peter catches the glint of a golden Star of David around his thick neck.

“Ben, this is our new friend, Peter Parker,” Susie says, as they enter the little student apartment fully, “Peter, this is our old friend, Ben Grimm.”

“Nice ta mee’cha,” Ben says, waving a hand with fingers like Polish sausages. Peter nods and smiles, and looks around the apartment. “Hey, Egghead! Susie-Q’s here, and she’s brought guests!”

Ben and Reed, Peter thinks, live in a _super-awesome_ apartment. Suspended over the kitchen sink is a huge set of beakers simmering over what looks like homemade Bunsen burners, and stacks upon stacks of engineering books and magazines are littered across the surface of the breakfast bar. In fact, it looks like Ben has been using a stack of Carl Sagan texts as a side table-coaster-combination for a glass of something by the couch. While he loves the chemistry set in the kitchen, the TV set-up is _killer_ , with a huge screen and every gaming system he’s ever heard of attached to it--Ben has the TV paused on some football thing--and then one whole wall is filled with hand-built processors and tech.

“Whoa. This is insane. Di-di-did you build this all, Ben?” Peters asks.

“No, this is all the Egghead’s,” Ben says shortly, rooting around in a drawer.

“What about me?” asks a mild voice from one of the bedrooms. Peter barely has a chance to register the body that comes out, as Susie full-body lauches herself into its arms, other than this is a long, lanky, bony person with untidy brown hair. So, this must be Reed, he thinks, since Susie has locked her mouth over his.

“Sue! Missed you!” says the new guy. He has a relaxed, kind smile, Peter notes, as Reed drops Susie gently back to the ground.

“Reed, this is our new friend, Peter Parker. Peter, Reed Richards, my--"

“Boyfriend. Got it. This is _incredible_ stuff you’ve got here, Reed!” Peter almost sighs as the computers light up to the sound of Reed’s voice-- _so cool_. “Is that an AI you’ve got programmed in this?”

“Nah, just a jacked-up Alexa gambit,” says Reed.

“ _What can I do for you, Mr. Richards?_ ” the machines ask. “Nothing, power down,” he chides. “I’ve got it under-wrought to avoid any of Bezos’s bullshit--can’t be too careful these days, you know. There’s so many back doors into Amazon that I just order whatever I want for free--no card on file, just a campus P.O. box. This is how the revolution will go--by stealing from bazillionaires like him and Musk and Stark Industries.” Peter nods like he understands all of this hacking-talk--that’s completely nuts.

“So, how’s band camp, Petey? Having fun with those gold crashers?” Ben asks from the kitchen. He’s found a cigar, of all things, in the drawer, and is flicking some matches.

“Benjamin, no cigars in the kitchen, go outside,” Reed says absently from behind Peter.

“Hmmphf, I’ll turn the fan on,” Ben grunts.

“Ah, you know, it’s band camp, it’s fun. I’m rooming with Johnny, that’s how we met,” he squeaks.

“I avoided rooming wit’ ‘im when I was still in high school--ain’t he the most typical trumpet player you’ve ever encountered? Like, my sweet aunt Petunia, the biggest head filled with almost nuttin’,” Ben observes, puffing on the cigar, leaning under the stove’s exhaust fan. Peter chuckles a little, but Johnny turns his typical blotchy-red. 

“If you’re going to insult me, butthead, at least give me a cigar too!” Johnny says hotly.

“Why’re you here anyways, dingus?” Ben asks.

“Reed’s step-dad sent him good whiskey for his birthday in July, that’s why,” Johnny quips.

“Reed! You’re not even twenty years old!” Susie scolds. Reed shrugs, and commences to play with Susie’s hair, seemingly trying to distract her. Ben rolls his eyes, and does hand Johnny a cigar.

“Didn’t realize some punk-ass-nancy from Long Island would be interested in whiskey,” Ben mutters--his voice, Peter has realized, has a rock-salt rasp in addition to the Lower East Side accent.

“Hmmpf, especially some punk-ass who got wasted on ‘skittle dew’ last night anyways,” Susie snipes, relaxing into Reed’s arm. Peter scarcely knows where to look--this is like being in a room with Mr. Barton, Mr. Lang, Mr. Wilson, and Mr. Barnes all at the same time, the stings zooming around the room lightning-quick.

“What’s ‘skittle dew’?” Reed asks innocently.

Susie starts with “It’s deplorable,” at the same time Peter jolts a “It’s disgusting,” but mostly, Johnny’s exclamation of “It’s _amazing_!” rings clearer in the room. He launches into the Joshes’ usual explanation of it.

“Sweet sufferin’ Jehovah, that would kill someone,” Ben says flatly, puffing on the cigar some more.

“I’m shocked it hasn’t. Johnny, smoke that thing somewhere else, you’ll get ashes all over the couch. My god,” Susie says, flicking her small hands at Johnny, puffing and struggling to light the cigar.

“Kid, what’re you doing with that match!?” Ben snaps. He yanks Johnny by the collar out on to the little patio with another book of matches. Watching Ben hassle Johnny through the glass doors, Peter settles on the rickety chair by the computer set-up, settling the cymbal base by his legs.

“So, Peter, what’s your story?” Reed asks, pushing himself up from the couch while still wrapped firmly around Susie. Peter takes him in more seriously now, and finds that Reed Richards is definitely all arms and legs, raw-boned, but he’s wearing black yoga leggings and a blue-striped tank top, but also a pair of orange fuzzy socks that rest haphazardly on his calves. Reed’s jawline could cut glass, but his nose is bony and crooked and his ears stick out a bit under the tufts of unruly brown hair. He does have, Peter also finds, a thousand-yard-stare that seems to know more than what a person could actually know upon first impression.

“Oh, uh, I’m from Queens, I guess, and I, uh, do science at Midtown Science and Tech. I like... _Star Wars_ and, uh, well, I play the cymbals, but I guess you already knew that, and um, I’m rooming with Johnny. We both like machinery?” he says lamely.

“You _do_ science? What kind?” Reed asks, sitting up more and folding his legs under him in a complicated pretzel. It looks...super-human? Peter feels his brow knit a little, but he forces himself to listen to the words coming out of Reed’s mouth.

“How are you getting your legs to do that?” Peter blurts, though, before he can really concentrate.

“Reed’s, uh, from California,” Susie says. “He’s really good at yoga!”

“Yeah, and I play the saxophone,” Ben utters, coming in the door with Johnny trailing behind him.

“You _do_ play the saxophone, though,” Johnny says. Reed nods, but unravels his feet. “I have photographic evidence."

“For my independent study this summer, I’ve been tracking tachyon particles with Al-uh, you-know-who,” Reed says. “Any interest in particle physics at all? Engineering? Stuff like that?”

“Don’t get ‘im started,” Ben warns, opening the fridge. Johnny, who is mysteriously cigar-less now, putters in a cabinet while Ben pulls out bread, mustard, deli slices, and other items.

“Ah, well, a little of everything these days, I guess. I suppose I ought to settle on something soon, for college,” Peter says. “I’m pretty good at chemical engineering, I guess, but I do like quantum physics, from what I’ve learned from Han--my friend Han. He’s Chinese.” _No one here needs to know that you’ve done some science homework with Hank Pym._

“Excellent. Alexa, can you pull up that latest Hank Pym paper to show Peter?” Reed asks the machines behind him. The wall of machine whirs and replies happily, and pulls up the paper as a hologram. “See, Pym thinks that because of the Pym Particle and tachyon conjunctions, you can find these pretty wacky energy signatures, things that have been around since the beginning of the universe, but that’s old news--Pym knew about the Infinity Stones long before the Snap or the Blip or even Tony Stark, but he was only theorizing. _However_ ,” here Reed draws in a huge breath, “In the lab on Wednesday, I was able to combine my own version of the Pym Particle and a tachyon, and the readings were absolutely off the charts! Wanna know the weird thing?”

“Yes, oh, please, yes!” Peter finds himself begging--he wonders if the doctor’s magic and Wanda’s magic, so fueled by the Stones, have anything to do with time-traveling tachyon particles. With that in play, the freaking String Theory could be proved! He bites his lip to keep from blurting anything--after all, Peter Parker wasn’t at the Thanos Battle, Peter Parker hadn’t touched that gauntlet and been thrown through the air by Carol (he _really_ misses Carol, and thinks that he should send her an email or something, maybe see if she has SnapChat yet), and all that. But Spider-Man did, and that, for Peter, is enough adventure for the rest of the year.

“My lab readings light up like the Fourth of July at the football field while your band was at rehearsal! Like, I could hear you guys playing, literally, while these readings are off the charts at the stadium. Like, Omega-level energy, Alpha-level--!”

“Beta and Theta and Pi, too, right? Excuse me, but I think I am done being the dumbest person in the room for the moment,” Johnny snaps. “Where’s the whiskey, Egghead?”

“Why do they call him ‘Egghead’?” Peter whispers to Susie, as Reed unfolds himself from the couch.

“Bad haircut two years ago--plus, old-fashioned nickname for a smart person?” she says, looking at Peter like he’s three kinds of stupid.

Reed graciously pours whiskey into some Tupperware tumblers that are clearly nineties hand-me-downs for all of them, kissing the top of Susie’s head as he hands her a cup.

“Hothead, who exactly do you think you are, ordering your host around like a waiter?” Ben asks, propping his feet up on the coffee table.

“I think that I’m Jonathan fucking Storm, that’s who,” Johnny says with an edge, “and I came for whiskey. And maybe to hot-wire some university vehicles for giggles.”

“I can’t believe they won’t keep you in juvie,” Ben growls, and takes a sip of whiskey. Peter mimes drinking some--it smells good, but he knows better.

“Can you imagine this face in a jail? I’d turn the whole population gay!” Peter accidentally inhales some whiskey at this jibe, and chokes on it.

“Prison life is not exactly a joking matter, Johnny,” Reed says gently, “Back in California, most of the firefighters for wildfire emergencies are inmates, but they can’t be hired as firefighters when they leave the prison system, which is ten kinds of fucked up.”

“Well, lucky for us, we’re in New York, and not California!” Johnny snaps, blushing blotchily, but his eyes say he’s embarrassed rather than mad.

“Say, uh, Reed, when you’re talking about the energy levels of these Pym-tachyon hybrids, and the lights are going off, what do you think that means?” Peter asks, wanting to know, but also wanting to avoid talking about all the problems of the world and how fucked-up it still is.

“Oh! I think it’s signs of the same power those stones held, morphed into humans! There’s a guy, out in Massachusetts, named Xavier, a geneticist, who’s studying the sort of ‘Infinity-based DNA mutations’ as a theory--like, what if these old astral remnants were somehow built into mitochondrial DNA, passed through farandolae through the generations, until now! The surge of meta-humans on Earth was clearly triggered by the Stones being on the planet’s surface. It’s an incredible theory!”

“What Brainiac here means is--” Ben starts. Peter’s brain is whirring away at hyper-speed, and he’s pretty sure his eyebrows have fused at this point.

“No, no, I got it. I completely understand,” Peter interrupts. _Wanda’s powers have to do with the Stones, don’t they? Those experiments in Sokovia when she was a kid?_ He needs to look up this Xavier, get him in touch with Dr. Banner, then Wanda’s free to stop baby-sitting here.

“He...he understands? Susie, who _is_ this kid?” Ben asks, slamming his cup on the stack of Sagan books.

“He’s Peter fucking Parker, that’s who, rocks-for-balls!” Johnny shouts, a grin of triumph on his face.

“I swear on the holiest of holies, if you keep needlin’ me, it’s clobberin’ time!” Ben shouts, jumping up with fists raised. Johnny jumps to take Ben on. 

“Sit _down_ , both of you, and shut the fuck up!” Susie shouts, getting up in between the two of them. She puts her hands out between them, and they both swiftly back away like she’s electrified them. The look of terror on both of their faces is halfway funny, but also makes Peter’s toes curl. Susie, like MJ, is a girl with a frightening amount of power and resolve.

“Say, Reed, can...can I come to your lab tomorrow afternoon?” he asks, thinking about webs once again, but not the kind he can swing from. Somehow, he’s gotta connect the dots between Wanda and the stones and this Illyana girl and Dr. Strange and Dr. Banner’s mission for Wanda--at the center lies Mr. Stark’s plan for him, and for others like him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, now we've got the F4 together! One big, happy, sometimes cranky family. I feel like a really good update to Reed Richards would be someone who's really invested in social justice, and hero-ing for the betterment of the world. It would play off the kind of character Victor Von Doom would come off as today, and like Spidey, the F4 are pretty close to the ground. 
> 
> Leave a review, a head-canon of what instrument other X-kids and Avengers would play, more thoughts on Dr. Strange's opinions of Chuck Mangione, whatever! They all bring joy. 
> 
> If I can get five more reviews, I'll link to my high school show that I'm basing Midtown's show on.


	6. Thursday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy holidays, y'all. I am DETERMINED to wrap this up soon!

When Peter wakes up, it’s not to his alarm, but a crackly snigger from Johnny’s mouth. 

“Do I even wanna know?” he asks, shifting and rolling over. He cracks open one eye, and sees Johnny laying on his back, texting.

“Yeah, I just told MJ you’d meet her for breakfast with a surprise! Looks like it’s gonna be the surprise in your shorts, though, Pete,” Johnny quips. Peter looks down, finds nothing out of the ordinary, and jumps out of bed. The phone, he finds, is not Johnny’s super-sized, state-of-the-art StarkPhone; it’s Peter’s own cracked iPhone.

“How-what-what the fuck?! You asshole! How’d you get into my phone?!”

“I’m not the dumbest person on the planet, just the dumbest person in the room most days.” Johnny rolls over and passes the phone back to Peter gingerly. Peter rolls his eyes, and thumbs through his texts and other messages.

_Hey MJ! See you for breakfast? I have a surprise for you!_ it the only thing Johnny’s messaged her, actually, and he’s done nothing but change Peter’s profile photo into Captain Rogers with a silly face on a couple profiles.

MJ has replied: _heading down now. save you a seat. hope the surprise isn’t a garrote_. Peter jumps at this, rushes headlong to the bathroom and washes his face ( _thank Odin and the Force and Thor and all the saints that I showered when I got home from Ben and Reed’s_ , he thinks), and tries to get his hair into some semblance of okay-looking--it’s gone all curly again, and wobbles in a puff over his forehead, kinda like that guy in One Direction. MJ probably doesn’t even like One Direction, so maybe she won’t notice?

He yanks on fresh shorts and his telekinesis t-shirt as fast as he can, rushing out the door just as Johnny is pulling himself out from under the covers, the door slamming behind him. He runs down the stairs two at a time, and high-tails it to the door, skidding to a halt when he sees Illyana Rasputin leaving the girls’ dorm with her dark-haired friend Kitty.

_Miss Rasputin has recently mutated, and her skills in magic have set off every ward that Wong and I have set up from Wakefield to the South Shore._ The doctor was no joke about this, Peter thinks, squinting in the bright morning sun, so he does a quick look-around for MJ, and decides he can either make her wait for a few minutes, or wait a few for MJ, either way.

When he approaches, Kitty grabs Illyana’s arm, and starts giggling nervously.  
“Um, hey, you’re Illyana, right?” he asks-- _I have no fucking clue what I’m doing; Wanda should be doing this!_

“Yes, she is! I’m Kitty, Kitty Pryde! You’re Peter Parker, right?” Kitty crows, bouncing up and down. Illyana has a really _freaking_ stoic face--she could give MJ a run for her money. Illyana’s blue eyes flicker up and down him, smiling briefly as she presumably reads his t-shirt.

“Yeah, I am,” he says shortly, mind backfiring. “Uh, say, Illyana, have you ever been to, like, uh, Bleecker Street?” He’s about 93.4% sure the doctor’s magic offices are on Bleecker Street. 

“With all the nightclubs? No?” Illyana says, looking a little affronted.

“I have!” chirps Kitty. “My dad’s taken me there!”

“Uh, that’s cool, Kitty. Um, okay, I, uh, just wanted to know,” he finishes up lamely, rolling back on his heels. He looks over Illyana’s shoulder, and sees Wanda storming towards him, orange ponytail swinging wildly. She has a stony look on her face--like she might launch him into the air at any second and let him take the hard way back down.

“Why? Do you live on Bleecker Street?” Kitty presses.

“No, no, I live in Forest Hills,” he says, looking away. “Uh, I gotta go!” He turns heel, and runs--after all, Wanda can’t do anything to him in front of Kitty and Illyana, unless she wants to blow her cover as Wanda Matelski.

By the time he gets to the dining hall, he’s already sweating, mostly in fear of Wanda, but the heat is definitely starting to set it. He looks around for MJ, and he sees her waiting in line, yawning in a hoodie. She’s wearing leggings today, which he decides he _cannot_ think about until later.

“Hey!” he says, and it comes out faster and higher-pitched than he means. He drops his voice quickly. “How’d you sleep?”

“Hey,” she says, jerking her head up, “I didn’t. New Black Dahlia documentary--I have no self-control when it comes to that case.” She yawns again.

“Black Dahlia? Isn’t that the--?”

“True crime case where Elizabeth Short was found bisected at the waist, one of the biggest and most famous murders in America?” she cuts him off, eyes suddenly ablaze. “Yes. That’s the one. It’s my favorite.”

“That’s...that’s really cool, MJ.” He can’t but grin like an idiot as they trail into the dining hall. While Peter pours cereal and milk into a bowl, feeling too warm already for scrambled eggs, MJ stuffs slices of bread into every available toaster slot, already drinking coffee.

“I’ll go save you a seat,” he says, watching her pour a second cup.

“Thanks,” she replies, and her eyes and mouth crinkle in the little mile that makes his heart race. She taps his arm with one slim finger, and he can’t help but smile back, even though his feet feel too big all of the sudden. He applauds himself for not spilling his orange juice all over as he walks away. 

_Okay, Pete, when she sits down, she’s gonna want to know what that surprise is that Johnny was leading her on about. So the surprise will be...you’re gonna ask her out. Should I take her to get smoothies while we’re here? Or maybe we should go see a movie after we leave? We could get pizza, maybe?_

His thought process is interrupted, however, when MJ slides into the seat across from him with her coffee cup and her usual big stack of buttered toast, though this time, she’s grabbed some jam packets. She shrugs off her hoodie in a way that Peter is much too fascinated by.

“So, what’s my surprise, Peter?” she asks, voice flinty, but her brown eyes are soft. He looks up at her, and his palms start sweating like summer fire hydrants. 

He licks his lips, and opens his mouth, but as soon as he opens his mouth to say, “Want to go--?” he’s cut off by Wanda.

“Peter, Tracy sent me to fetch you,” Wanda says, her eyes steely. Somehow, Peter doubts that Tracy actually wants to see him.

“Oh, uh okay. Can I finish my cereal?”

Wanda’s eyes flash red. “What do you think?” 

“Oh. Well, uh, I guess I’ll see you later, MJ.” MJ nods, and pulls a book called _Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements_ her hoodie’s pocket, and buries her face in it. He follows Wanda out the door.

“Are you _stupid_?!” Wanda snarls, rounding on him. Her eyes flash red again.

“Well, my GPA’s pretty good, so I don’t think completely, no.” Peter feels like he is swallowing a frog.

“Doctor Strange _visited_ you, twice, and you didn’t _tell me_?!” she cries, yanking him behind a bush as a gaggle of trumpet players, including Johnny, stride by. He hears Johnny actually say, “I think I am, like, God’s gift to band camp, guys,” and then a yelp as someone punches him. Peter bites a snigger down.

“How do you _know_ he visited me, Wanda?” he asks, feeling quite nervous.

“How do I know?! I’ve got a weird ticker, Peter, that’s what I do! I make sarcastic quips and know things. And apparently teach the Charleston to teenage girls,” she snaps. “He leaves an intense neuro-chemical trail when he uses a sling-ring. What did he talk to you about?”

Peter feels really, really torn, but goes for kind of a half-truth.

“He, uh, told me to talk to a, uh, a girl. And asked what instrument I played,” he says, sucking in a breath through his teeth and stuffing his hands in his pockets--all of his fingers are crossed inside them.

“Oh, did he now? Give you advice for how to ask out MJ? Did it involve talking over her and feeding her useless trivia?” she asks--her voice is still a little angry, but her mouth does quirk in a small smile.

“Well, uh, I mean, no, but I was going to ask her out, and then you _interrupted me_!” He smiles a little bashfully.

“Oh, so now you’ve worked up the balls to not only admit your crush, but you’re also making a move? It’s been 72 hours! Good for you!” She punches his arm, and pushes him out from behind the bush. “What happened?”

“Well, you know, what happens at band camp, stays at band camp,” he says, and shrugs. He glances at his phone--he has just enough time now to run back to his room, grab his cymbals, and get down to the field. His stomach rumbles, and he hopes that he can sneak some orange slices before they start.

* * *

“Ah, great, I smell like cinnamon and deodorant, god bless!” Angelica shouts, sniffing her armpit as Peter and MJ stride with her across the field to get some water.

“I never thought in my life that I’d be taught to do the Charleston by a Polish lady on a football field, and yet, here we are,” MJ comments, stretching her arms out. She tosses her head, shaking her curls around in their ponytail. “This has to be a secret indoctrination plan.”

Johnny jogs up, trailed by Eddie.

“Dude! Felicia is organizing a movie night in the lounge! We should go!” Johnny crows, grabbing Peter’s shoulder.

“Oh, uh, I’ll try. I told Reed I wanted to check out his lab, so that might preoccupy me a bit tonight,” Peter says. “What movie, is it?”

“Oh my lord, Pete, you are _such_ a nerd!” Eddie says.

“Spicy take, Eddie--what have your accomplishments been lately? Winning an eating contest? A keg stand last year?” MJ spits.

“Hey, I never said I was here for a long time. I’m just here for a good time,” Eddie chuckles. Peter smiles a little, and he looks over to see Wanda, flipping a rifle in the air, hands splayed--though a reddish lightning bolt hits it, spinning it more times in the air than it really should be capable of. He locks eyes with her, and she smirks.

“Do you ever wonder if Mr. Connolly thinks that he’s god, up there in the press box?” Eddie asks. “Booming up there, one with his headset, giving us multiple commandments?” 

“Brock, I’m Catholic, I can’t be hearing this!” Angelica snaps.

“Jones, I think you’re overreacting,” Eddie protests. He sees Harry, and trots away. Peter gets in line for yellow Gatorade behind Susie.

“I’d better be freaking ripped after all of this,” he comments, trying to stretch his shoulders--they are starting to ache, though he admittedly is really not finding his cymbals very heavy anymore.

“I hear you. It’s 97 degrees, and I feel like I’m dying, but at least my outfit’s cute. Reed texted me--he says he’s available during rest hour, you’ll just need to go to Harrington Hall and he’ll let you in,” Susie says. She’s wrapped several strips of damp gauze around her wrists.

Sipping Gatorade, Susie and Peter join MJ and Angelica. Peter surveys the tent, thinking hard about why Wanda and Dr. Strange and the rest of the Avengers are not on the same page about all these extra enhanced and mutants rolling around Midtown Science and Tech. _Who else in this tent is enhanced, besides me and Illyana, apparently?_

As if she knows, Illyana approaches him with Kitty in tow. 

“Peter Parker, I really need to know why you were asking me about Bleecker Street this morning!” she demands. Susie raises her eyebrows, looks up at Peter, and then to MJ.

“Uh, I, well, just wanted to know!” he stutters, trying to think of any excuse.

“Bleecker Street is famous for its complex tunnels for mutant turtles under it,” MJ drawls, blinking mulishly. Peter sees Wanda enter the tent. “I think we need to start doing research to see if they’re naming themselves after Renaissance artists.”

Illyana stares back, and Peter swears he sees a silver-white mist pouring from her hands. _Oh no, not good, not good, not good!_

“Uh, you know, I, uh, gotta go! Gotta go make the cymbals practice their stuff for drum solo!” he gabbles, and zips away.

“Yeah, Peter, go make those hoes mark time!” MJ says, lifting a cup as he walks away. He looks around, and grabs Allie and Felix by their upper arms, pulling them back to the field with him. Joey and Marco exchange a look, even though they have orange rinds stuck in their teeth, and follow. Ian and Toby are sitting on the field, throwing wads of turf at each other.

“Peter! What are you doing?! Let go!” Allie protests, her braids streaming after her. “Eugh, why is my arm all sticky now!?”

“Sorry. Let’s go over some of those moves again!” he shrieks, voice cracking with nerves-- _what the hell did he just see?!_

“If you say so, Pete!” chirps Toby, hauling himself up.

“Thanks. I know I’m not technically in charge here, but thanks for treating me like I know what I’m doing,” is all Peter can think to say.

* * *

The afternoon turns overcast and muggy, and so Peter has never been more excited to get back in a lab, where things are dim and cool and, well, cool.

“Don’t say hi to Brainiac or Ben for me--I don’t want to know what kinda weird shit you two get up to in that lab. Ugh. If there’s a hot TA, text me, though,” Johnny sneers, lounging on his bed.

“Uh, guy, or girl?” Peter asks, looking back. He tosses his backpack over his shoulder--it has a tablet in it that he rented from the public library, a hoodie, his web-shooters, and the single, jangling, probably close to expired web fluid canister that got left there from...before.

“As if it’s ever mattered to me,” Johnny says casually, flipping through his massive StarkPhone.

“Oooo-kay then. See ya later!” Peter walks out their door, not sure if Johnny just came out to him, or if he’s just being sassy. It probably doesn’t matter, Johnny even said that himself. He walks off to find Harrington Hall, where Reed’s lab is housed, enjoying the shade--he’s smeared aloe from Bobby’s bathroom kit all over his face to help with the sunburn and hopes that it’ll heal over as quick as his cuts and bruises usually seem to these days.

He finds the hall, and pushes open a door, tapping on his phone to the number Susie gave him-- _hi reed, it’s peter! what lab are you in?_ The inside of Harrington is air-conditioned and comfortable, white and sleek and tiled and very quiet except for titration burbles and the whir of machines.

A tufty brown head pops out of a door down the hall.

“Parker! Come on in!” Reed calls. Peter scurries up the hallway and enters Reed’s lab--it’s dark and quiet with whirring, and it smells faintly metallic and earthy, and suddenly Peter is reminded of the battle upstate, swinging through the air with Carol and that lady with the Pegasus (he had never thought that _Percy Jackson_ books could ever be real until that moment, but then again, his “babysitter” is a lady with a so-called weird ticker).

“Thanks for letting me come visit, Reed! Wow! This is a pretty great set-up!” Peter replies, looking around. It’s filled with big computer screens, and behind a glass wall is a repository of vials and canisters filled with particles that softly glow. 

“It’s not too bad--my lab at Caltech was a bit nicer, better funded, but I guess I can’t complain--the tuition here is cheap, and it’s close to my folks since they moved to Long Island. That’s how I met Ben and Susie and Johnny. Well, Ben was my roommate here first, since I was finally old enough to live in the dorms this time around. Anyways! What were you wanting to look into?” Reed says. He shuffles in his Birkenstock sandals. Reed’s dressed like all the lights were out in the apartment this morning; he has on some grey plaid pants with the knees busted out and a button-down with a pattern of lemons and leaves on it.

“Well, you were saying last night about your particles and tachyons and these wild readings, plus that Pym theory. What kind of readings were you getting?” Peter asks, dropping his bag on a worktable that is clear of beakers and instruments.

Reed folds his angular body into a wheelie chair, and spins one to Peter. Peter leans on it for a minute, sucking his lips to his teeth while Reed steeples his fingers and looks at him through a pair of round-framed glasses.

“We can fire those up--wild the other day, just absolutely nuts,” Reed ponders, and pushes the chair to a computer desk, legs still in a pretzel. “Like, I’m telling you, Pym’s theory is too accurate. Xavier’s too.” Peter sits, watching Reed pounding the keyboard and plugging in what looks like a homemade set of cables to the computer tower, and is reminded distinctly of Ned. 

“Do...do you know much about the stones?” Peter asks, leaning forward.

“Stones? What stones are ya talkin’ about, kid?” booms Ben’s voice. Ben himself enters the lab with a huge sandwich in his hand; Reed swivels to look at his friend. “What? Wyatt came early for his desk shift at the gym. Thought I’d come say hi before practice!” Reed smiles affectionately and swivels back to the screen.

“Um, you know, the Infinity Stones,” Peter admits, shrugging. “I’m kinda interested in them these days.”

“Mmm, well, let’s smash some of my Richards Rays with some tachyons and replicate the readings, Parker! Should be a good time!” Reed crows. 

“Egghead, you know I love it when you clobber bits of matter together, but ‘Richards Rays’ is the name you came up with?” Ben asks, settling on the lab table.

“Well, it was either that or name them ‘Storm Specks’ after Sue, but...” Reed admits, unfolding himself from the chair and heading to the glass wall with the glowing flasks behind it. 

“But then Johnny would think it would be named after him?” snorts Ben. He bites into his sandwich with a huge crunch of pickles and lettuce and onions. 

“Yes, unfortunately,” Reed remarks, rolling his eyes with a flash of his glasses. “Okay, Parker, you sit at that console”--Reed flings a thin arm to a silver console that looks straight out of the Enterprise-- “and hit the green square when I say so, then yank down the switch that looks like a light dimmer with the pi sticker on it. Ben...”.

“I’m eating, Reed! Leave me be!” “Fine. Ben, eat your snack, then. We’ll be doing science instead,” Reed says. “Alexa, pull up the Richards Ray-Tachyon Combination Tracker!”

“ _Yes, Mr. Richards_ ,” the AI purrs--Peter smiles, impressed that Reed has managed to reprogram the standard AI to two places at once, like F.R.I.D.A.Y. kind of. He wonders if Mr. Stark would have been impressed with Reed at all, though he had once heard Mr. Stark refer to Elon Musk as a friend, and Reed admitted to stealing from Musk just last night. A hologram displays behind Ben, who scoots around to look at the cool gray lights, mapping most of the suburban college campus. 

“Alright, Parker, green!” Reed calls, pulling some control levers on a panel next to the glass wall. Peter presses the green square, and then starts lowering the switch with the pi sticker. “Pull that one a little faster!” 

“Ah, yes, the _science_ is happening--how magical!” Ben quips. Reed rolls his eyes and tosses his head mulishly, and Peter watches as he manipulates the levers to crash a blue particle and a yellow particle together--it lights up bright orange, and he punches something in the control panel to push it into a tube, and then the hologram blows up in an orange splat! like the Nickelodeon logo, so bright for a moment that Peter needs to close his eyes for a moment.

“Criminy! This is an even bigger spread than last time!” Reed breathes. Peter opens his eyes--the hologram’s orange-ness has dimmed a little in a scatter-spread of dots, and Ben has swung his thick legs on the table to look closer at the map. “Parker, come on over!” 

“Whoa! And so this can measure energy signatures of enhanced humans?” Peter asks, moving to the hologram map, feeling a little nervous, but the map is brightest in the dorms to the north of Harrington Hall. 

“Yes, the brighter the dot, the higher the energy level. That Xavier guy, the geneticist, identifies it in a rough hierarchy. ‘Omega-level’ means untapped potential--huge powers that can shift lots of matter, mass, energy, stuff like that; then it’s alpha, beta, and so on,” Reed says. “Isn’t this...isn’t your school staying in Wheeler and Knox, up here?” Peter gulps and nods--the Midtown girls’ and boys’ dorms are lit up like Times Square.

“And look-y here, there’s a blip in Harrington,” Ben says slyly, tracing the hall with a blunt fingertip. “Right here in this very lab.” Reed and Ben look to Peter. Reed glances at the hologram again, and adjusts his glasses as he peers closer to it. 

“Not a huge power reading--maybe a Theta-level on Xavier’s scale,” Reed says, turned back to Peter.

“What, what? I’m not special or enhanced or a mutant or anything! Nah, I’m just your ordinary, neighborhood kid from Queens--nothing special!” Peter scrambles to spit out, backing away, hands up. But Ben looks to him with such a piercing honest glare, and Reed’s gaze bores into him. 

“Well, neither of us has ever been directly exposed to any stones, any rays, any particles, I promise you that. I am just your ordinary, every-day, social justice-driven genius from California,” Reed says mulishly, pulling off his glasses to clean them on the lemon-printed shirt.

“I’m just a Jewish kid from Brooklyn. We can keep a secret, Pete,” Ben assures him, clapping him on the back, putting the sandwich down.

Peter takes about ten seconds for sheer panic, gulps, and then takes a deep breath and launches himself up to the ceiling, and grabs at the air duct above him lightly. He scuttles lightly across it to be more directly above the pair of them.

“Wait...wait, wait, wait, are you the Wall-Crawler?! The Spider-Man?! The guy who’s always patrolling Queens?!” Ben shouts, dropping his sandwich on the ground. Peter drops lightly back on the ground. 

“Yeah, that’s me. Your friendly neighborhood Spiderman. You guys, you can’t, like, seriously, please don’t--not that many people know, and I’d like to keep it that way!” Peter protests, standing back up. “But I don’t have anything to do with the Infinity Stones or astral remnants stuck in farandolae or anything like that!”

“So, you’re just extra-sticky for no good reason?” Ben asks, crossing his arms.

Reed gets up in Peter’s face with a new set of glasses that expand his grey eyes several times, and a magnifier with a bright light, and grabs Peter’s hand to look at it. Out of the corner of his eye, Peter looks through the glass too, and knows what Reed sees. 

“He’s not sticky, Benjamin, his hands have advanced cilia, but I’m wondering if he has some minor control of the van der Waals force. Have you tested yourself much, Peter?” Reed asks. “Could I also take some samples? My minor at Caltech was biology, though it’s not my area of expertise, it would be kind of a pet project...How did this happen if you aren’t a traditional enhanced, Peter?”

“You’d never believe me; it’s--it’s kinda a stupid story!” Peter shrugs, pulling his hand back.

“Pete, you know Johnny--no one’s stories are stupider than Johnny’s, promise,” says Ben. “Okay, but here’s an actual important question,” Peter starts, raising his eyebrows, “Ben, if you’re Jewish, then what were you doing eating a ham sandwich?” Ben laughs and claps him on the back with a hefty thud.

* * *

Reed sucks his teeth, and then sticks his tongue out.

“Man, that was a really, _really_ good idea, Parker, saving this as a scatter map. I never would have thought of it, honestly,” Reed admits.

“All you had to do was hit ‘control S’, Reed,” Peter says, sizing up the map in front of him, arms crossed. “Learned that in the sixth grade.” 

“Yeah, well, I skipped the sixth grade and took the SAT instead,” says Reed. He zooms in on the halls the Midtown band is staying in--glowing still, but dimmer now.

“Like it’s rocket science to know computer keyboard shortcuts, Egghead,” Ben says, slapping Reed on the back.

“Okay, what’s the population that goes to your school? It’s in Midtown--what’s the geographical profile they’re coming from?” Reed asks, opening another hologram to google Midtown Science & Tech.

“Anywhere in the city--I mean, you’ve said so yourself that Johnny and Susie are from Long Island, I live in Queens, Cindy Moon comes in from the Bronx, Louie Minnelli lives in Manhattan, Jason Ionello is from Brooklyn...like, no real geographic continuities. I don’t think anyone comes in from New Jersey or Connecticut that I know of, but I suppose it’s possible enough,” Peter admit, hand to his chin.

“Okay, so there’s really no way to know how anyone got exposed to stones or anything. Can we identify who’s in these rooms somehow?” Reed asks the question more he’s brainstorming how to track down the DNA of the orange dots.

“Scan under the the fire escape map. We should be able to get somewhere from there,” Ben suggests. “Pete can find out who stays in which room, yes?”

“What would that get us? And why should we know about this?” Peter asks. “This seems kinda invasive--like, are we reporting a buncha minors to the Sovokian Registry or something? Because I _really_ value my privacy.”

“Good point, good point. But still, what if...no, no, it’s still wrong! You’re right!” Reed says.

Peter’s phone buzzes, and he lurches forward to snatch it from the table. Johnny’s texted-- _rest hour’s almost over; are you coming back to get to sectionals yet?_

“Oh, shit! I need to go! Hey, Reed, can you, uh, email this scatter map to me? And also that Xavier guy’s paper?”

“Will you consent to a DNA sample, for funsies? Privacy guaranteed!” asks Reed. “I’ll think about it!” Peter assures, and deciding it will be faster to swing across campus back to the dorms, digs in his backpack for the web-shooter. Ben smirks as he dashes out the door. He straps it on and runs out the door, looking forward to zipping through the air.

* * *

No wonder he’d updated the formula so many months ago, Peter notes, as he shoots the next web to another building, and swings around. The buildings mostly seem to be empty, and he slings around the side of the dining hall and land on the roof with a relieved backflip, pondering where it would be good to let himself down so he can be unseen and unnoticed. He looks at his watch--ten minutes until sectionals.

He finds a windowless stretch, and lowers himself down on a web-line, eager to save his gloveless hands from the rough brick. Ten feet from the ground, the inferior web formula gives out though, and it snaps.

Shocked, Peter scrambles to land safely-- _I can do that!!_ But maybe the exoskeleton on his new suit has spoiled him, because he flips around and covers his neck, knowing he doesn’t have time to land on his feet.

But instead of hitting the hard sidewalk, he _flumps!_ into...into snow? He looks up, wiping rapidly melting flakes from his face, and stares up, to his absolute shock, at Bobby Drake, who honestly looks just as stunned as Peter is.

“Uh...I won’t say anything if you don’t!” Bobby hisses, and whips his hands, undeniably covered in frost and ice, into his pockets. He makes a mad dash back to the dorms.

“Shit. This is going to get _real_ complicated now,” Peters mutters to himself, utterly pissed that his secret’s slipping out, and that he has to grab his cymbals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two more reviews and I will share a link to the show I'm basing this off of! Or leave thoughts about Ben's approach to Judaism, more Avenger band head canons, or love for Johnny, Marvel's biggest dumbass.


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